Community care services: views of patients attending a geriatric day hospital

The NHS and Community Care reforms give increased emphasis to meeting the needs of patients as consumers of services, but little is known about patients' perceptions of services. In this study, we obtained the views of patients attending a geriatric day hospital about community care services and professional support; their knowledge of services, perceived unmet needs and perceptions of benefit. Forty-seven patients with a mental status score above 7/10 who attended the day hospital in a four week period were interviewed using structured questionnaires for consumer opinion, modified for this population. Patients had poor knowledge of services, especially of those which support carers and of private sources of support. When informed about the availability and purpose of local services, they recognised few unmet needs on average, less than one per patient, nearly always a need for social services, especially other forms of day care. Patients' perceptions of benefit from services and professional support were highest for day hospital care itself (98% of maximum possible benefit). There could be scope for the development of social work case management programmes in geriatric day hospitals; the methods used in this study provide a model for obtaining consumer opinion.