Planned short-stay admission to a geriatric unit: one aspect of respite care.

Our unit aims to provide planned short-term in-patient care for any disabled elderly person who requests it. The patients using the service over a 12-month period are described. Most were heavily disabled and it seems unlikely that their carers could cope at home without the opportunity of a break from time to time. The service is cheap, as relatively few beds are needed and those mostly in the summer. Morbidity amongst patients (and their carers) was high but we could find no evidence to support recent suggestions that admitting such patients was harmful.