An article examined the conceptual, policy, and practical links between poverty and community-oriented social work. It said that social workers should be directly involved in the relief of poverty; and that the approach most likely to prove successful in this context was one in which practitioners retained close contact with the local community, working in partnership with a joint focus on prevention and empowerment.
Source: Greg Mantle and Dave Backwith, 'Poverty and social work', British Journal of Social Work, Volume 40 Issue 8
Links: Abstract
Date: 2010-Dec
An article examined the experiences of voluntary sector organizations involved in public sector commissioning. The research suggested that the public sector was limiting the voluntary sector's engagement in service design and performance monitoring.
Source: Susanne Martikke and Claire Moxham, 'Public sector commissioning: experiences of voluntary organizations delivering health and social services', International Journal of Public Administration, Volume 33 Issue 14
Links: Abstract
Date: 2010-Dec
A new book examined social work practice with lesbians and gay men, and suggested ways to include them in assessment and the provision of services.
Source: Helen Cosis-Brown and Christine Cocker, Social Work with Lesbians and Gay Men, SAGE Publications
Links: Summary
Date: 2010-Dec
A report said that the development of 'personalized' social care services in Scotland had significant implications for the voluntary workers who provided the services – including changes to working hours and flexibility, the acquisition of new skills, the development of a more casualized workforce, and the potential fragmentation of pay and conditions away from collective terms.
Source: Ian Cunningham and Dennis Nickson, Personalisation and Its Implications for Work and Employment in the Voluntary Sector, Voluntary Sector Social Services Workforce Unit
Links: Report | CCPS press release
Date: 2010-Dec
The High Court ruled that automatically banning those convicted for, or admitting, certain crimes from working with children and vulnerable adults without allowing them to make representations breached their rights to a fair trial.
Source: Royal College of Nursing & Others, R v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Another, High Court 10 November 2010
Links: Text of judgement | Civitas press release | RCN press release | Personnel Today report | Nursing Times report
Date: 2010-Nov
A report said that social workers had been held back from being able to provide the most appropriate support to people in need. It set out a new approach that would enable care managers to provide more focused support to those who needed it and more enabling support for those who did not. It also set out how the whole set of community-based support could be better utilized by more strategic leadership from local government.
Source: Simon Duffy, A New Script for Care Managers, Centre for Welfare Reform
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Nov
A collection of papers examined some of the challenges of market development in adult social care in the context of personalization, and proposed practical ways in which partners could work together to address them.
Source: National Market Development Forum Papers, Institute for Public Care/Oxford Brookes University
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Nov
The Court of Appeal ruled that a social services authority had acted lawfully in withdrawing care from an elderly woman (in order to save money) despite her unchanged circumstances.
Source: R (McDonald) v Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, Court of Appeal 13 October 2010
Links: Text of judgement | Law report | DLS press release | Guardian report
Date: 2010-Nov
A survey examined key issues confronting those involved in planning and providing adult social care at a time of budgetary pressure. Local authorities and service user/carer organizations were acutely aware that budget cuts would bring about radical changes for the sector, and many were beginning to think about the implications and plan for decisions ahead.
Source: Chloe Smith and Matt Cavill, Shaping Public Spending Priorities for Adult Social Care, Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Date: 2010-Nov
A think-tank report summarized the findings from a survey of 770 care users across 10 local authorities, which focused on what people wanted to change about their lives and the care and support they might like to use. It covered users of personal budgets and direct payments, council-funded care users (yet to be offered a personal budget), and self-funders – providing data that was highly relevant to the future of care and support provision in the context of the personalization agenda.
Source: Claudia Wood, Personal Best, Demos
Date: 2010-Nov
An article examined the role of private finance products under the 'partnership' option for funding long-term social care contained in the 2009 Green Paper. Few households were able to pay for care based on income and savings, but the number increased if housing assets were included. Products could be devised for a range of circumstances, although state support would need to continue. A simplified means-testing system could be used, based on a combination of income and assets.
Source: Les Mayhew, Martin Karlsson and Ben Rickayzen, 'The role of private finance in paying for long term care', Economic Journal, Volume 120 Issue 548
Links: Abstract
Date: 2010-Nov
The Scottish Government published a strategy designed to ensure that as many people as possible could choose how their funding for social care support was spent.
Source: Self-Directed Support: A National Strategy for Scotland, Scottish Government
Links: Strategy | Scottish Government press release | Community Care report
Date: 2010-Nov
A progress report was published on the 16 integrated care pilots in the National Health Service.
Source: RAND Europe/Ernst & Young, Progress Report: Evaluation of the National Integrated Care Pilots, Department of Health
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Nov
The coalition government announced reviews of the vetting and barring scheme (the system of checks on people working with children and vulnerable adults) and the criminal records regime.
Source: Written Ministerial Statement 22 October 2010, columns 77-78WS, House of Commons Hansard/TSO
Links: Hansard | Home Office press release | Manifesto Club press release | REC press release | Children & Young People Now report | BBC report | Nursery World report
Date: 2010-Oct
A report said that the policy of protecting 'vulnerable adults' through criminal record checks 'vastly inflated' the vulnerability of adults who were receiving health or social care. The money spent on checking and monitoring carers would be more productively spent on delivering social and health services to the public.
Source: Ken McLaughlin and Josie Appleton, Carers or Suspects? CRB checks and the regulation of the caring professions, Manifesto Club
Links: Report | Manifesto Club press release
Date: 2010-Oct
An article examined the advent of personal budgets in social care services in England, and the implications for public services reform. Although debate had tended to focus on the processes/outcomes associated with personal budgets, the authors conceptualized this way of working as a form of 'conditional resource entitlement' – a situation in between direct service provision and income adjustment, in which the individual was given direct access to resources but with conditions attached.
Source: Simon Duffy, John Waters and Jon Glasby, 'Personalisation and adult social care: future options for the reform of public services', Policy & Politics, Volume 38 Number 4 Links: Abstract
Date: 2010-Oct
A journal issue examined the implications of the personalization agenda for social work practice.
Source: Journal of Social Work Practice, Volume 24 Issue 3
Links: Table of contents
Date: 2010-Sep
A report examined what was meant by sustainable development in the context of adult social care and health.
Source: Gemma Bradshaw, Janet Sillett and Amelia Walker, Independence, Community and Environment: Final report of the Sustainable Social Care Learning Network, Social Care Institute for Excellence
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Sep
An article examined the implications for social work practice of legislative moves to strengthen the rights of lesbians and gay men.
Source: Christine Cocker and Trish Hafford-Letchfield, 'Out and proud? Social work's relationship with lesbian and gay equality', British Journal of Social Work, Volume 40 Number 6
Links: Abstract
Date: 2010-Sep
A new textbook provided an overview of key issues and core themes in the field of health and social care.
Source: Adam Barnard (ed.), Key Themes in Health and Social Care: A companion to learning, Routledge
Links: Summary
Date: 2010-Sep
An article examined the evidence base of published generic social care commissioning guides. The guides drew most heavily on government documents and other practice guidance rather than research evidence. When empirical research was cited, samples and methods were not given in sufficient detail, and in a few instances findings were misinterpreted. The tendency to rely on government publications was to some extent a manifestation of the state of research capacity and literacy within the social care field.
Source: Peter Huxley et al., 'Better evidence for better commissioning: a study of the evidence base of generic social care commissioning guides in the UK', Evidence & Policy, Volume 6 Number 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2010-Aug
A report said that there was evidence that people, including those with severe learning disabilities or dementia, were being detained in care settings without just cause. Health and social care professionals lacked the understanding to properly implement safeguards put in place to protect people deprived of their liberty by care providers.
Source: Roger Hargreaves, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards: An initial review of implementation, Mental Health Alliance
Links: Report | MHA press release | Community Care report
Date: 2010-Jul
A briefing paper examined the contribution of social work and social care to the reduction of health inequalities. There was no systematic body of research evidence that focused on whether social work and social care had a direct effect on the distribution of health outcomes at the individual or population level: but social work and social care practitioners worked with some of the most disadvantaged groups, and this offered many opportunities to improve the lifetime health of those most at risk.
Source: Esther Coren, Wendy Iredale, Paul Bywaters, Deborah Rutter and Julie Robinson, The Contribution of Social Work and Social Care to the Reduction of Health Inequalities: Four case studies, Research Briefing 33, Social Care Institute for Excellence
Links: Briefing
Date: 2010-Jun
The evidence base was published for a five-year strategy for the National Health Service in Wales.
Source: Delivering a Five-Year Service, Workforce and Financial Strategic Framework for NHS Wales, NHS Wales
Links: Report | NHS Wales press release
Date: 2010-Jun
A briefing paper examined the integration of health and social care services. It said that a new model based on 'neighbourhood' and involving a 'Total Place' approach could enable health and social care integration to develop further.
Source: Where Next for Health and Social Care Integration?, NHS Confederation
Links: Briefing
Date: 2010-Jun
A report examined Welsh policy responses to a rapidly ageing society.
Source: John Osmond, Adding Life to Years: Welsh policy approaches to ageing, Institute of Welsh Affairs
Links: Summary
Date: 2010-Jun
A special issue of a journal examined the management of risk in social work practice.
Source: British Journal of Social Work, Volume 40 Number 4
Links: Table of contents
Date: 2010-Jun
A new book examined the role of professional discretion in welfare services.
Source: Tony Evans, Professional Discretion in Welfare Services: Beyond street-level bureaucracy, Ashgate Publications
Links: Summary
Date: 2010-Jun
A study examined the 'conceptual confusion' surrounding continuity of care.
Source: Gillian Parker, Anne Corden and Janet Heaton, Synthesis and Conceptual Analysis of the SDO Programme's Research on Continuity of Care, Social Policy Research Unit/University of York
Date: 2010-Jun
The new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government announced that registration with the vetting and barring scheme for people working with children or vulnerable adults in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland would be halted to allow it to 'remodel the scheme back to proportionate, common sense levels'. Voluntary registration with the scheme had been due to start in July 2010.
Source: Written Ministerial Statement 15 June 2010, column 46WS, House of Commons Hansard/TSO
Links: Hansard | Home Office press release | Volunteering England press release | NCA press release | NCMA press release | REC press release | Alzheimers Society press release | Manifesto Club press release | BBC report | Children & Young People Now report | Personnel Today report | Guardian report
Date: 2010-Jun
An article criticized as 'undesirable and flawed practically' attempts to encourage practitioners in a range of settings – such as school, healthcare, and children's centres – to 'engage' fathers.
Source: Brid Featherstone, 'Writing fathers in but mothers out!!!', Critical Social Policy, Volume 30 Issue 2
Links: Abstract
Date: 2010-May
A study examined how service users could be involved in shaping local care services. It found that the involvement of service users was still in its infancy; that the definition of 'user involvement' varied from one-off consultations to equal partnerships; and that there were more good practice examples of user involvement in social care than in health.
Source: Silvia Schehrer and Stephanie Sexton, Involving Users in Commissioning Local Services, Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Date: 2010-May
An article examined the notion of 'hard to reach', and perceptions of the barriers and facilitators to accessing health/social care services for 'hard to reach' groups, from a voluntary and community sector perspective.
Source: Sarah Flanagan and Beverley Hancock, '"Reaching the hard to reach": lessons learned from the VCS (voluntary and community sector) – a qualitative study', BMC Health Services Research, Volume 10
Links: Article
Date: 2010-Apr
An article examined the processes necessary to promote – and institutionally embed – participation by those typically excluded from user participation in developing social care services and policies.
Source: Louisa Hernandez, Paul Robson and Alice Sampson, 'Towards integrated participation: involving seldom heard users of social care services', British Journal of Social Work, Volume 40 Number 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2010-Apr
A joint statement was published on social work in adult services in England, designed to clarify the contribution of social work. The statement set out: the purpose of social work in adult services; the distinct contribution of social work; the contribution to better outcomes; and opportunities to develop new roles for social workers in personalized services – including support for self-funders, promoting social cohesion, and creating safe, healthy, and prosperous communities.
Source: The Future of Social Work in Adult Social Services in England, Association of Directors of Adult Social Services/Department of Health/Skills for Care/British Association of Social Workers/Social Care Association
Links: Paper | Community Care report
Date: 2010-Mar
A report summarized the evaluation of a pathfinder programme designed to improve the understanding of the role that social enterprise could play in health and social care. It said that the ethos and values of the social enterprise model were a catalyst for improving choice, equality, and access to services; and that it enabled services to be delivered in an innovative and efficient manner.
Source: Tribal Newchurch, Leading the Way Through Social Enterprise: The Social Enterprise Pathfinder Programme evaluation, Department of Health
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Mar
A report examined the economic savings available from integrating a broad range of health, housing, and social care services. It found 'significant evidence' that integration created efficiencies and savings, with early intervention services potentially saving the National Health Service up to £2.65 for every £1 spent.
Source: Benefits Realisation: Assessing the evidence for the cost benefit and cost effectiveness of integrated health and social care, Turning Point
Links: Report | Turning Point press release
Date: 2010-Mar
The government published a plan for implementing taskforce recommendations for a programme of comprehensive reform for social work in England.
Source: Building a Safe and Confident Future: Implementing the recommendations of the Social Work Task Force, Department for Children, Schools and Families/Department of Health/Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
Links: Plan | Hansard | CWDC press release | Children & Young People Now report | Community Care report
Date: 2010-Mar
A report examined the impact of the economic recession on adult social care.
Source: Acton Shapiro Consultancy and Research, The Impact of the Economic Slowdown on Adult Social Care, Local Government Association
Links: Report
Date: 2010-Mar
The government published a strategy for promoting the role of volunteering in the health and social care system, including addressing health inequalities.
Source: Volunteering: Involving People and Communities in Delivering and Developing Health and Social Care Services, Department of Health
Date: 2010-Mar
The Scottish Government began consultation on a strategy for self-directed support, developed in order to help take forward the 'personalization' of health and social care services. The strategy promoted the use of individual budgets, under which users were allocated a sum of money to meet their assessed needs which they could take as a direct payment or leave to their local council or a third party to administer.
Source: Self-Directed Support: A national strategy for Scotland, Scottish Government
Links: Consultation document | Community Care report
Date: 2010-Feb
A paper examined the concept of personal budgets as 'Conditional Resource Entitlements' (CREs) – a means of targeting resources towards those who were eligible, but with specific conditions attached. It said that personal budgets, if framed as a form of CRE, could form part of a wider strategy for welfare reform that emphasized citizenship and personal responsibility.
Source: Simon Duffy, John Waters and Jon Glasby, Personalisation and the Social Care 'Revolution': Future options for the reform of public services, Health Services Management Centre/University of Birmingham
Links: Paper | HSMC press release
Date: 2010-Jan
The government responded to a consultation on strengthening protection for vulnerable adults. It said that new legislation would be introduced to enshrine in law the need for every local area to have in place a Safeguarding Adults Board – a body made up of the local social services authority, the police, the National Health Service, and other bodies involved in protecting vulnerable adults.
Source: Written Ministerial Statement 19 January 2010, columns 8-10WS, House of Commons Hansard/TSO
Links: Hansard | DH press release | Consultation document | ADASS press release | LGA press release | Mind press release | Community Care report | Local Government Chronicle report
Date: 2010-Jan
Four linked reviews found widespread evidence of the unjustified differential treatment of older people as a group in both health and social care services.
Source: Angela Clark, Ageism and Age Discrimination in Primary and Community Health Care in the United Kingdom: A review from the literature, Centre for Policy on Ageing | Nat Lievesley, Ageism and Age Discrimination in Secondary Health Care in the United Kingdom: A review from the literature, Centre for Policy on Ageing | Nat Lievesley, Ageism and Age Discrimination in Mental Health Care in the United Kingdom: A review from the literature, Centre for Policy on Ageing | Angela Clark, Ageism and Age Discrimination in Social Care in the United Kingdom: A review from the literature, Centre for Policy on Ageing
Links: Report (1) | Report (2) | Report (3) | Report (4) | CPA press release
Date: 2010-Jan