Understanding intermediate care, including reablement

A quick guide for people using intermediate care services

Published: October 2017

Intermediate care services help people to recover from illness or an accident, to regain independence and to remain in their own homes. This guide gives people who use the services and their families and carers an overview of:

• The types of service available
• The four stages of intermediate care
• The professionals involved in providing care

Quick guides, developed jointly by NICE and SCIE, are based on NICE guidelines and quality standards. They cover key points on social care topics that are relevant to specific audiences. This new format has been developed in response to feedback from the social care sector who report that they prefer information about improving services to be easily accessible, concise and visually appealing. The guides are available online and also as PDFs.