Adapting the adult social care outcomes toolkit (ASCOT) for use in care home quality monitoring: conceptual development and testing.

Background: Alongside an increased policy and practice emphasis on outcomes in social care, English local authorities are now obliged to review quality at a service level to help in their new role of ensuring the development of diverse and high-quality care markets to meet the needs of all local people, including self-funders. The Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT) has been developed to measure the outcomes of social care for individuals in a variety of care settings. Local authorities have expressed an interest in exploring how the toolkit might be used for their own purposes, including quality monitoring.

The characteristics of residents in extra care housing and care homes in England.

Extra care housing aims to meet the housing, care and support needs of older people, while helping them to maintain their independence in their own private accommodation. It has been viewed as a possible alternative, or even a replacement for residential care. In 2003, the Department of Health announced capital funding to support the development of extra care housing and made the receipt of funding conditional on participating in an evaluative study.