An evaluation of a respite care unit for elderly people with dementia: framework and some results

This paper offers a comprehensive framework for service evaluation relevant to a new respite care unit, and reports some results of its application. On existing evidence the planning assumption of a preventive effect of respite care, in avoiding admission to institutional care, is argued to be unjustifiable. The results indicate that this unit had a high non-attendance and fall-out rate, and no incentives to co-operate with alternative services or to operate efficiently. Broad estimates of cost parities revealed that attenders at the unit sacrificed considerable amounts of alternative forms of care.