• Delivering more healthcare services closer to home is a new approach being reviewed by the sector.
• Schemes to do this, when well designed, can help local health economies manage capacity and may help avoid costs in the long run.
• Moving care into the community requires strong leadership, incentives and payment framework.
• Case studies in the report highlight different ways of moving care into the community and the key issues to note when transitioning.     

Monitor has published a report outlining the benefits and potential cost savings of providing healthcare out of acute hospitals and closer to home. Moving healthcare closer to home was produced in response to questions from providers and national bodies about the extent to which providing care in the community would deliver significant cost savings for local health economies.

The findings of the report show that moving healthcare closer to home will be important in addressing the pressures of future demand and that this may avoid further costs in the long run. However the report cautions against expecting too much from a shift away from hospital settings. Moving healthcare closer to home should sit alongside other solutions within acute hospitals such as further work on efficiency opportunities and improving patient flow.

Moving more patient care into community settings may be the right thing to do, but is a difficult thing to do and requires strong leadership at management, clinical, regulatory levels

Commenting on the report, Siva Anandaciva, head of analysis, said that the NHS is making a decisive shift to provide more care out of hospitals and in the patient’s community and home: "Today’s report shows that this makes a significant impact on the patient’s wellbeing and helps to deliver a sustainable NHS by making the health sector work better for patients." He added: “The case studies included in this report add weight to the analysis by highlighting different ways of moving care into the community and the type of issues local health economies need to consider when transitioning. The focus is very much on moving away from processes towards pathways of care which can help incentivise providers to be more innovative in how they deliver services."