Commissioned by the Better Care Fund (BCF) Support Programme, we conducted an in-depth study on preventive and proactive care initiatives across England. Our goal was to understand their effectiveness and economic impact, ultimately guiding local investment and supporting peer learning.

To achieve this, we followed a structured approach, starting with a desk-based review and accessing the Better Care Exchange platform, a social network for health and social care sector representatives, to collect evidence. We also launched a call for evidence, which generated 18 responses, helping to fill gaps in available interventions and their supporting evidence. Using a Research Extraction Sheet, we analysed the evidence from 86 initiatives, providing a summary of the identified impacts for each scheme, along with insights into the potential for scaling up or replication, barriers and challenges faced, and key lessons learnt. Our research concluded with a summary of evidence for nine types of proactive and preventive care, along with practical case studies.

➥ The BCF report, which summarises our research findings, is available here.