ABSTRACT
An understanding of the 1980 World Health Organization classification of the consequences of impairments, disabilities and handicaps is essential when planning services for older people. It helps to explain the relationship between health and social care. The wholesale transfer of care of frail older people from the hospital setting to that of the community has shifted the medical responsibility from the hospital consultants and their teams to the general practitioner. The success of community care depends on collaboration between health and social services to ensure that older people receive the right balance of care. In order to deliver care in the community, multidisciplinary teams with specialist expertise will need to be developed and evaluated, to work alongside general practitioners, in collaboration with social services. High technology in the home and the hospital could enable radical new developments to take place allowing older people, and their carers, to have far greater freedoms than previously imagined.
