Robin Means

This new edition has been updated to reflect recent shifts in community and social care whilst still providing the authoritative account of its historical development. Particular attention is paid to partnerships between health and social care, the regulation of social care, direct payments and individual budgets and user/carer empowerment.

Help the Aged funded this major study because of concerns that older people living in private rented housing were vulnerable to abuse and harassment by landlords. Drawing upon detailed research with older people, professionals and landlords in six different localities, the report provides the first major study of this important issue. The report concludes with a series of recommendations to central and local government. These include the need for changes in such areas as the overall regulation of the sector, the rights of older tenants and in the housing benefit system. The recommendations also cover the need for better training for professionals about abuse and harassment, improved age related records and the need for improved funding for advice and advocacy services. This study will be essential reading for a wide range of practitioners and academics whose interests and responsibilities span older people and their reliance upon the housing and welfare systems.

This study reflects a growing recognition of the contribution that studies of the post-war 'welfare state' can make to contemporary debates about the restructuring of welfare. Drawing on the community care debates from 1971 to 1993, it illuminates contemporary concerns about such key issues as rationing care, the health and social care divide, the changing role of residential care and the growing emphasis on provider competition. From community care to market care focuses on the interpretation and development of national policy at local authority level in four contrasting local authorities. The results of the study will make a significant contribution to our understanding of the community care provision of older people.

Recent community care changes have raised fundamental issues about the changing role of the public, voluntary and informal sectors in the provision of social care to older people. They have also raised issues about the health and social care interface, the extent to which services should be rationed and the respective roles of residential care and care at home. From Poor Law to community care sets these debates in the context of the historical growth of welfare services from the outbreak of the Second World War through to the establishment of social services departments in 1971. Based on extensive research on primary sources, such as the Public Records Office and interviews with key actors, the book considers the changing perceptions of the needs of elderly people, the extent to which they have been a priority for resources and the possibilities for a policy which combines respect for elderly people with an avoidance of the exploitation of relatives. This is an updated second edition of The development of welfare services for elderly people, first published by Croom Helm, 1985. It is essential reading for practitioners and policy makers interested in gerontology, policy studies, community care and postgraduate students studying and training in a range of health and social care related professions.