Developing Social Care: the Past, the Present and the Future

Wistow, G

Abstract

This report brings together key themes and findings from the first stage of SCIE’s Looking to the future project on developing social care for adults, children and families. It concentrates especially on the emerging vision for adult social care. It will contribute to the consultation on the Green Paper, Independence, well-being and choice: our vision for the future of social care for adults in England, and to changes to service focus and delivery that may arise from the Green Paper. Developing social care: The past, the present and the future draws on a wide range of evidence from literature reviews, surveys and focus groups. It reflects perspectives on current and future challenges at all levels in personal social services. Much has been achieved since the last major legislative changes in adult social care following the NHS and Community Care Act 1990. Real shifts have taken place in the balance between home, residential and hospital care. With those shifts have come more choices and opportunities for more independent lifestyles. Although our sources of evidence all emphasise that shortcomings remain – especially in terms of personalised care, social inclusion, early intervention and user control – the prospects for the next stage of change seem promising. There appears to be a broadly based consensus about what people want from adult social care. Moreover, the values and principles underlying that vision are consistent with the wider government strategy for public service reform and the vision outlined in the Green Paper on adult social care. Now the vision has to be put into practice. This paper aims to contribute to that vision and highlight some of the implications of delivering the vision.

Citation

Wistow, G. (2005). Developing Social Care: the Past, the Present and the Future. Department of Health

• Report Type: Technical Report
• Online Publication Date: Jul 1, 2005
• Publication Date: Jul 1, 2005
• Deposit Date: Jul 26, 2007
• Series Title: Adult Services Position Paper.
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1608814
• Publisher URL: http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/positionpapers/pp04.asp
• Additional Information: Publisher: Social Care Institute for Excellence; Type: monograph; Subtype: technical_report