Strengths and limitations of the study
RECRUITMENT
This is one of the first studies evaluating the impact of a new, anticipatory, multidisciplinary care service for older people living with frailty on wellbeing as well as quality of life. A major strength is the use of a matched control group, with propensity matching to adjust for baseline differences. This demonstrates the course of the patients’ outcomes and supports the relationship between outcomes and intervention [Second, the study groups had baseline differences in functional status and area deprivation scores. This may reflect sampling; those in the intervention group had – by definition – had to be mobile enough to attend the centre, while the control group included those who were house-bound (therefore with poorer functional status). GP practices (and hence areas) were included according to the roll-out of the integrated care service across the district; and selection of GP practices for control group recruitment were constrained by the roll-out (likely contributing to differences in area deprivation scores). However, propensity score matching using functional status and area deprivation scores still showed that the new service was associated with improved patients' wellbeing, and the size of this effect was clinically meaningful [