Carer Matters: Hospital to Home Care for the Caregiver

Carer Matters offers a caregiver-centric approach to meet the unique and dynamic needs of caregivers of older persons during their adjustment from hospital to home, promoting both their well-being and ability to thrive at home.

Key Points

- Family caregivers bear the brunt of responsibilities to deliver long-term care for their loved ones, a key factor that facilitates ageing-in-place in the community.

- However, specific support for caregivers’ personal needs remains inadequate due to a patient-oriented ecosystem of health and social care.

- To meet Singapore’s greying population and concomitant healthcare and social needs, its transformation of population health should embrace approaches that deliver greater support for caregivers, ensuring families can provide sustainable care for their loved ones.

- Carer Matters is a caregiver-centric hospital-to-home programme that holistically screens, identifies, and provides targeted interventions to meet the needs of caregivers of older persons.

- Early feedback and findings of the programme have been positive, demonstrating the value of integrating a caregiver focus into the healthcare systems delivering dyadic support for both the care-recipient and their caregiver.