Introducing case management for people with dementia in primary care: a mixed-methods study.

Background: Case management may be a feasible solution to the problem of service fragmentation for people with dementia.

Aim: To adapt a US model of primary care-based case management for people with dementia and test it in general practice.

Design And Setting: Mixed-methodology case studies of case management implementation in four general practices: one rural, one inner-city, and two urban practices.

The effectiveness of collaborative care for people with memory problems in primary care: results of the CAREDEM case management modelling and feasibility study.

Background: People with dementia and their families need support in different forms, but currently services are often fragmented with variable quality of care. Case management offers a way of co-ordinating services along the care pathway and therefore could provide individualised support; however, evidence of the effectiveness of case management for dementia is inconclusive.

Objective: To adapt the intervention used in a promising case management project in the USA and test its feasibility and acceptability in English general practice.

Designing a complex intervention for dementia case management in primary care.

Background: Community-based support will become increasingly important for people with dementia, but currently services are fragmented and the quality of care is variable. Case management is a popular approach to care co-ordination, but evidence to date on its effectiveness in dementia has been equivocal. Case management interventions need to be designed to overcome obstacles to care co-ordination and maximise benefit.

Improving palliative care provision for patients with heart failure.

In the last 14 years, research has identified that patients with heart failure suffer symptoms as severe as people with cancer and would greatly benefit from a palliative care approach. In spite of this fact, it is recognized within the National Service Framework for Heart Failure (Department of Health (DoH), 2000b) and the Cancer Plan (DoH, 2000a) that service provision from a palliative care perspective remains inadequate. In order to address the palliative care needs for patients with heart failure and their families a multidisciplinary team approach between primary and secondary care is needed.