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This paper presents a comparison of the views of staff working in 18 integrated care settings, undertaken as part of the PROCARE study of integrated health and social care. The data reveals some apparent commonalities across the nine European countries. Increased job satisfaction was an advantage of integrated working, but respondents also reported difficulties in working with hospitals or medical professionals, and continued barriers to integrated working generally. Overall, single standalone organisations such as home care teams reported the clearest benefits from integrated working, while cross‐agency models continued to encounter significant barriers to health and social care integration.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the role of Recuperative Care after hospital discharge.

A combined qualitative and quantitative study. The quantitative study was a concurrent, parallel, geographically controlled trial of Recuperative Care versus standard NHS hospital rehabilitation. Recuperative Care is rehabilitation in a residential care home with no on‐site medical or nursing staff. A daily programme of exercises and activities to improve independence is provided by two in‐house occupational therapists. The primary outcome measures were discharge destination, domicile 3 and 12 months post‐discharge and mortality. A purposefully selected sample of 20 recuperative care patients was interviewed after discharge.

There was a small difference of borderline significance in initial discharge destination (slightly more patients were discharged home from recuperative care than from Hospital). However, at 3 months and 12 months there was no significant difference between the groups. A logistic regression analysis suggested the main determinant of outcome was cognitive function. There was no significant difference in mortality between the groups. The qualitative data demonstrated Recuperative Care to be a highly‐rated, positive and sometimes life‐changing experience for patients. The interview data illustrate the aspects of care and characteristics which were beneficial.

Recuperative care is a model of partnership working which has potential to free‐up hospital beds while benefitting patients.

The presentation of the qualitative data aims to highlight those aspects of Recuperative Care which seemed beneficial from a clinical perspective.