Care in the Community

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Contents 1 Origins of Care in Community 2 Aims of Community Care Policy 3 The Griffiths Report: Community Care: Agenda for Action 4 1989 White Paper 'Caring for People 5 The Impact of the Community Care Reforms 6 Mental Health and Community Care 7 References 8 See also

[edit] Origins of Care in Community

Although this policy has been attributed to the Margaret Thatcher government in the 1980s, community care was not a new idea. As a policy it had been around since the early 1950s. Its general aim was a more cost effective way of helping people with mental health problems and physical disabilities, by removing them from impersonal, often Victorian, institutions, and caring for them in their own homes. Since the 1950s various governments had been attracted to the policy of community care. Despite support for the policy, the number of in-patients in large hospitals and residential establishments continued to increase. At the same time, opinion gradually turned against long-stay institutions. Conditions were appalling. What contributed to this change of attitude were cases of abuse being highlighted by writers and the media.

In the 1960s one remarkable woman, Barbara Robb discovered from personal experience how bad they were. She put together a series of accounts in a book called Sans Everything and she used this to launch a campaign to improve or else close long stay facilities. Shortly after this the brutality and poor care being meted out in Ely, a long stay hospital for the mentally handicapped in Cardiff, was exposed by a nurse writing to the News of the World. This exposure prompted an official enquiry. Its findings were highly critical of conditions, staff morale and management. Rather than bury this report it was in fact deliberately leaked to the papers by the then Secretary of State for Health Richard Crossman, who hoped to obtain increased resources for the health service.

But the situation at Ely Hospital was not unique and a series of scandals hit the headlines. All told similar stories of abuse and inhumane treatment of patients who were out of sight and out of mind of the public, hidden away in institutions. At the same time Michael Ignatieff & Peter Townsend both published books which exposed the poor quality of care within institutions. These scandals did prompt legislation and funding to develop services in the community and a commitment from the government to continue the policy of community care. But very little happened until the 1980s.

In the 1980s there was increasing criticism and concern about the quality of long term care for dependent people. There was also concern about the experiences of people leaving long term institutional care and being left to fend for themselves in the community. Yet the government was committed to the idea of 'care in the community'. In 1986 the Audit Commission published a report called 'Making a Reality of Community Care'. This report outlined the slow progress in resettling people from long stay hospitals. It was this report which prompted the subsequent Green and a White paper on community care.

[edit] Aims of Community Care Policy

The main aim of community care policy has always been to maintain individuals in their own homes wherever possible, rather than provide care in a long -stay institution or residential establishment. It was almost taken for granted that this policy was the best option from a humanitarian and moral perspective. It was also thought to be cheaper.

The Guillebaud Committee reporting in 1956 summed up the assumption underlying policy. It suggested that:

Policy should aim at making adequate provision wherever possible for the care and treatment of old people in their own homes. The development of domiciliary services will be a genuine economy measure and also a humanitarian measure enabling people to lead the life they much prefer

Three key objectives of Community Care policy:

• The overriding objective was to cap public expenditure on independent sector residential and nursing home care. This was achieved in that local authorities became responsible for operating a needs-based yet cash-limited system.

• There was a clear agenda about developing a mixed economy of care, ie a variety of providers. The mixed economy provision in residential and nursing home care has been maintained despite the social security budget being capped. And there are now many independent organisations providing domiciliary care services.

• To redefine the boundaries between health and social care. Much of the continuing care of elderly and disabled people was provided by the NHS. Now much of that has been re-defined as social care and is the responsibility of local authorities.

An important point to note though is: that NHS services are free, whereas social services have to be paid for. So how the care you require is defined, that is health or social care, determines whether or not it will be free.

[edit] The Griffiths Report: Community Care: Agenda for Action

Sir Roy Griffiths had already been invited by Margaret Thatcher to produce a report on the problems of the NHS. This report was influenced by the ideology of managerialism. That is it was influenced by the idea that problems could be solved by 'management'. Griffiths firmly believed that many of the problems facing the Welfare State were caused by the lack of strong effective leadership and management. Because of this previous work, which was greatly admired by the Prime Minister, Griffiths was asked to examine the whole system of community care. In 1988 he produced a report or a Green Paper called 'Community Care: Agenda for Action, also known as The Griffiths Report.

Griffiths intended this plan to sort out the mess in 'no-man's land'. That is the grey area between health and social services. This area included the long term or continuing care of dependent groups such as older people, disabled and the mentally ill. In 1988 Griffiths said of Community care that it was everybodies distant cousin but nobody's baby Basically he was saying that community care was not working because no one wanted to accept the responsibility for community care.

Community Care: Agenda for Action made six key recommendations for action:

1 Minister of State for Community Care to ensure implementation of the policy it required ministerial authority.

2 Local Authorities should have key role in community care. ie. Social Work / Services departments rather than Health have responsiblity for long term and continuing care. Health Boards to have responsibility for Primary and Acute care.

3 Specific grant from central govt. to fund development of community care.

4 Specified what Social Service Depts should do:- assess care needs of locality, set up mechanisms to assess care needs of individuals, on basis of needs - design 'flexible packages of care' to meet these needs

5 Promote the use of the Independent sector: this was to be achieved by SW Depts collaborating with and making maximum use of the voluntary and private sector of welfare.

6 Social Services should be responsible for registration and inspection of all residential homes whether run by private organisations or the local authority.

The majority of long term care was already being provided by Social Services, but Griffiths idea was to put community nursing staff under the control of local authority rather than Health Boards. This never actually happened. The Griffiths Report on Community Care seemed to back local government whereas, the health board reforms in the same period, actually strengthened central government control.

[edit] 1989 White Paper 'Caring for People

In 1989 the government published its response to the Griffiths Report in the White Paper 'Caring for People: Community Care in the next Decade and Beyond" This was a companion paper to ' Working for Patients' and shared the same general principles:

General Principles:

• Same New Right ideology - and a belief that State provision was beaureaucratic and inefficient. That the State should be an 'enabler' rather than a provider of care. The UK state at this time was actually funding, providing and purchasing care for the population
• Separation of the Purchaser / Provider roles
• Devolution of budgets and budgetary control

Caring for People key objectives

The White Paper followed the main recommendations of the Griffiths Report but with two notable exceptions.

• The White Paper did not propose a Minister of community care and
• It did not offer a new system of earmarked funds for social care along the lines advised by Griffiths.

It did however; identify 6 key objectives which differed slightly from Griffiths Report.

• New Funding Structure
• Promotion of the Independent Sector
• Agency Responsibilities Clearly Defined
• Development of Needs Assessment & Care Management
• Promotion of Domiciliary, Day & Respite Care
• Development of Practical Support for Carers

These objectives required new legislation which was enacted in the Community Care and Health Act 1990

[edit] The Impact of the Community Care Reforms

The Community Care reforms outlined in the 1990 Act have been in operation since April 1993. They have been evaluated but no clear conclusions have been reached. A number of authors have been highly critical of the reforms. Hadley and Clough (1996) claim the reforms 'have created care in chaos' (Hadley and Clough 1996) They claim the reforms have been inefficient, unresponsive, offering no choice or equity. Other authors however, are not quite so pessimistic.

Means and Smith (1998) claim that the reforms:

• introduced a system that is no better than the previous more bureaucratic systems of resource allocation
• were an excellent idea, but received little understanding or commitment from social services as the lead agency in community care
• the enthusiasm of local authorities was undermined by vested professional interests, or the service legacy of the last 40 years
• health services and social services workers have not worked well together and there have been few 'multidisciplinary' assessments were carried out
• in reality little collaboration took place except at senior management level
• the reforms have been undermined by chronic underfunding by central government
• the Voluntary Sector was the main beneficiary of this attempt to develop a "mixed economy of care"

[edit] Mental Health and Community Care

Under the Communicy Care and NHS Act 1990, people with mental health problems were able to remain in their own homes whilst undergoing treatment. This situation raised some concerns when acts of violence were perpetrated against members of the public by a small minority of people people who had previously been incarcerated in old Victorian psychiatrist hospitals.

Although there have been some murders by a few people in the community with mental health problems, the truth is that it is far more likely that someone with mental health problems will be subject to attack by someone who is healthy themselves.^[1]

The National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 was passed so that patients could be individually assessed, and assigned a specific care worker; in the unlikely event that they presented a risk they were to be placed on a Supervision Register. But there have been some problems with patients "slipping through the net" and ending up homeless on the street. There have also been arguments between Health and Social Services departments on who should pay.

In January 1998, the Labour Health Secretary, Frank Dobson, said the care in the community programme launched by the Conservatives had failed (Care in the community to be scrapped, BBC, 1998. Retrieved on September 26, 2005.).

The situation in London has long been particularly difficult. People with psychiatric problems, particularly drug and alcohol abuse, and schizophrenia gravitate to London from all over the world and from all over the country. However, funding for health care in London has been redistributed to the provinces and the proportion of the overall NHS budget spent on mental health services has declined from 11% to 9%. Many psychiatric beds have been closed. In order to get better psychiatric bed utilisation, psychiatric wards became mixed sex wards and the pressure on beds has meant that the level of disturbance on the acute psychiatric wards has become much greater.

Some of the resultant initiatives have been largely cosmetic. For example, assertive outreach has been widely promoted for difficult cases. The team have a small caseload and are able to dedicate intensive resources. In consequence, the teams often have a waiting list of years and are only prepared to accept patients with severe, treatment resistant schizophrenia.

1. ^ Read J. and Baker S. 1996, Not just sticks and stones

[edit] References

• Atkinson, J. (2006) Private and Public Protection: Civil Mental Health Legislation, Edinburgh, Dunedin Academic Press
• Bornat, J et al (1993, 1997) ‘’Community Care: a reader’’, Basingstoke, Macmillan.
• Curtice, L. et al (1997) ‘’Domiciliary Care in Scotland’’, Edinburgh, The Stationary Office.
• Langan, M (1990) Community care in the 90s: the community care White Paper Caring for People, ‘’Critical Social Policy’’, 29, p58-70.
• Lewis, J & Glennester, H (1996) ‘’Implementing the New Community Care’’, Buckingham, Open University Press.
• Means, R & Smith, R. (1998) ‘’Community Care: Policy and Practice’’ (2 edition), London, Macmillan Press
• Weller M P I (1989) Mental illness - who cares? 'Nature' 399: 249-252.
• Weller M.P.I., Sammut R.G., Santos M.J.H. and Horton J. (1993) 'Whose sleeping in my bed?' Bulletin of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, 17: 652-654.

[edit] See also

• Clare in the Community