Intermediate Care Service

The intermediate care service is provided to patients after leaving hospital or when they are at risk of being admitted to hospital.

The service is a ‘bridge’ between hospital and independent living and aims to stabilise and improve levels of independence and wellbeing to a point where support is no longer needed or the person can be offered other appropriate care/services.

The  service aims to:

  • Help people avoid going into hospital unnecessarily
  • Assist people to be as independent as possible after a stay in hospital
  • Prevent people from having to move permanently to a residential home unless they need to.

The intermediate care service is made up of:

Urgent community response service
Operating 24/7 as an alternative to hospital admission. The team undertakes intervention outside of service hours for district nursing, urology, palliative care, home enteral feeding and other specialist nurses. People are supported in their own home, nursing home etc, according to their need and level of dependency.

Neighbourhood rehabilitation service
The team provides rehabilitation to medically stable residents in their own home and residential care. The service provides specialist community therapy assessment and treatment to improve health and independence. In addition, the service offers rehabilitation to enable earlier discharge from hospital.

Accessing the service

Neighbourhood rehabilitation - Monday to Sunday - 8am - 5pm
Urgent community response - always open

Referral guidelines

Referral criteria:

Patient must be registered with a Barnsley GP and have one of the following needs:

  • Specialist assessment and intervention
  • For urgent community response, require assessment within two hours to prevent a deterioration/hospital admission (this may include falls, end of life care, pain management, urgent catheter care etc)
  • Intravenous therapy in the community setting
  • Have an identified complex need that can be provided by a specialist care team
  • Requires district nursing or other specialist community nursing service out of hours

Updated:  October 2025

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