During 2012, a national charity began a ‘proof of concept’ exercise to look at how targeted interventions with over 65s delivered by their volunteer workforce could help to improve quality of life and reduce admissions to hospital. A cohort of residents based around 2 GP practices was selected for the intervention.

CELL Consulting was asked to evaluate the financial consequences of the intervention. The work involved a cost-benefit analysis, comparing outcomes and costs for the cohort with those of a comparator group which had not received the intervention.

The cohort was selected based on factors such-as falls risk and long-term conditions. Volunteers worked with members of the cohort and co-ordinated with primary and community care, social care and health commissioners. Their aim was to manage these risks and work towards user specified goals.
Early indications and anecdotal evidence suggested there were improved outcomes for people within the cohort compared to what would be typical without the intervention.

While the charity began an exercise to assess the qualitative improvements it also wanted to assess the financial impact of the intervention. This exercise, if the results were positive, could then form an evidence base to justify further investment and scale-up the project.

CELL Consulting quickly identified that the key challenge to overcome was that there was no randomised control sample against which to compare the cohort. So while judgement was necessary, the cost-benefit analysis needed to be undertaken in conjunction with key stakeholders to validate its approach and findings.

A large amount of historic data on hospital admissions and A&E attendances for the local population was analysed and, based on certain key features in-common with the cohort, an approach for developing a proxy for a control group was identified and then validated with stakeholders.

A similar approach was adopted for analysis of outcomes and spending for other local providers of health and social care. This ‘whole system’ scope was designed to identify whether cost shunting occurred.
Early results of this cost-benefit analysis illustrated a very positive financial return for the investment in volunteer time. Significant savings across health and social care were observed.

While the results were expected to be positive, the cost-benefit analysis allowed the clients to quantify this impact with some reliability. Importantly they could also analyse where their interventions were most effective. The evaluation gave them the basis for investment in the expansion of the cohort.