The demand for home visiting services since the COVID-19 lockdown

A review of the literature on the demand for primary care home visits during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This review aimed to answer the following questions:

1. How has demand for home visiting services changed since the COVID-19 lockdown was introduced and primary care (for example GP, community nursing team, rapid response team) switched to a mostly remote model?
   Population: housebound patients in the UK who are unable to attend the GP surgery. This does not include patients with COVID symptoms who should be isolating, as these patients are still being seen face-to-face in GP surgeries (or in their cars outside the surgery).
   Outcomes: demand for home visits (for example number of patients requesting a home visit and / or number of patients being visited at home has increased)
2. How have primary care services (for example GP, community nursing team, rapid response team) been reorganised for housebound patients during the COVID-19 pandemic?
   Population: housebound patients in the UK who are unable to attend the GP surgery. This does not include patients with COVID symptoms who should be isolating, as these patients are still being seen face-to-face in GP surgeries (or in their cars outside the surgery).
   Outcomes: new / innovative models of care (e.g. video consultations with housebound patients).

Overview of findings

No publications about demand for primary care home visits during the COVID pandemic were found.

Two articles described innovative models of delivering home visits during the pandemic:

1. a UK model of recruiting community health workers to deliver basic health and social care to housebound patients; and
2. an Italian double triage system for housebound cancer patients.

Work is planned to analyse data locally and in other regions, particularly areas with higher rates of COVID patients currently (for example London), to investigate UK trends in home visiting rates.

Citing this report

This report should be cited as:

Duncan, P. and Elwenspoek, M. The demand for home visiting services since the COVID-19 lockdown. 17 April 2020. Available from: https://arc-w.nihr.ac.uk/research-and-implementation/covid-19-response/demand-for-home-visiting-services-since-the-covid-19-lockdown/