Welfare Reform on the Web (October 2011): Social care - UK - community care

Always on call, always concerned: a survey of the experiences of older carers

Princess Royal Trust for Carers

2011

A survey of 639 older informal carers aged 60 to 94 found that two-thirds reported having health problems or a disability. Only half felt confident lifting the person they cared for, and 69% said that being a carer had damaged their psychological wellbeing. The report recommends that GPs should offer annual health checks and depression screening to older carers, and provide home visits. It also recommends that carers should be given training and equipment for lifting if required, and that they should have respite breaks funded by the health service and local councils.

URL: http://www.carers.org/sites/default/files/always_on_call_always_concerned.pdf

Family policy and the governance of anti-social behaviour in the UK: women's experiences of intensive family support

S. Parr

Journal of Social Policy, vol. 40, 2011, p. 717-737

The presumption that anti-social behaviour (ASB) is driven by dysfunctional family environments gave rise to the implementation of a range of intensive family support programmes by the New Labour governments in power 1997-2010. However the academic community remained unconvinced and intensive family support policies were subject to criticism. This paper seeks to engage with the debates about the role of intensive family support in the governance of ASB by exploring the perspectives of women who received the intervention. The case study project did impose severe restrictions and intense control on families, especially those living in core residential accommodation. On the other hand, it also focused on improving the health, education, housing and income of the families, tackling factors that make a stable family life difficult. It is concluded that the role that intensive family support plays in the governance of ASB is inherently bound up with the way that it is implemented at the local level, which means that labelling intensive family support as either 'good' or 'bad' is overly simplistic.

Home care funding cuts

J. Dunning

Community Care, Sept 8th 2011, p. 4-5

A survey of funding decisions by the UK Home Care Association found that 82% of 111 UK councils and health and social care trusts had cut the visiting time allocated for at least some clients. The average visit length fell from 48 minutes to 38 as a result of cuts in 2011. Analysis of 50 case studies supplied by providers found most service users receiving safety check visits had had these cut. The same applied to social contact visits, and services such as help with washing, continence, cleaning, shopping, laundry and managing finances.

Organisation and delivery of home care re-ablement: what makes a difference?

P. Rabiee and C. Glendinning

Health and Social Care in the Community, vol. 19, 2011, p. 495-503

Home care re-ablement is high on the English health and social care policy agenda, and is a cornerstone of the government's preventive services initiatives. Many local authorities are transforming their former in-house home care services to provide short-term intensive re-ablement instead. This paper focuses on the organisation and content of re-ablement services and the features of their organisation and delivery that have the potential to enhance or detract from their effectiveness.