Short-term support

If you are eligible for publicly-funded care and support, Adult Social Care will often suggest up to six weeks of reablement or intermediate care.

Reablement

Up to six weeks of rehabilitation with home care staff.

Adult Social Care staff will talk to you about what outcomes are most important to you. They will help you find different ways to achieve your outcomes, for example:

• different ways of doing things

• using equipment to do things

• relearning how to do things

Together, you will plan what you are aiming to achieve. The staff will review the plan each week.

Intermediate care

A range of health and social care services that can help you stop needing hospital or long-term residential care.

Care and support staff may be able to:

• Support you while you are recovering from an illness, allowing you to remain in your own home

• Provide support in your own home or in a residential or nursing home to prevent you having to go into hospital

• Prevent you staying in hospital longer than you need to by helping you to get back to living at home

• Support your carers, friends or relatives in looking after you when you are not as healthy or mobile as you were

While you are using reablement or intermediate care services, the staff will carry on assessing your needs, so that at the end of the period, Adult Social Care will know whether you need any more, longer-term support.

Equipment

During these first few weeks, staff will also talk to you about equipment that may help you with daily living, so that you can stay independent.

The list below is just a small example of the types of equipment that exist.

• Bathing

  • bath boards, bath seats, swivel bathers, bath lifts, bath steps, shower stools/seats

• Beds
  

  • back rest, mattress/pillow raiser, leg lifter, bed rails, bed lever, over-bed table, hydraulic beds

• Preparing food, cooking and eating

  • perching stool, kettle tipper, trolley

• Moving and handling

  • transfer belts, boards, slings, hoists, roll sheets, turning equipment

• Rails

  • grab or bannister rails

• Telecare 

  • small sensors which automatically send an alarm if you are in difficulty

• Toileting

  • raised toilet seats, bed side commode, bed pan, urinals, toilet frames

• Mobility equipment

  • walking frames, walking sticks and wheelchairs

This page was last updated on 18 May 2026