Search results

Efficiency has not been the most familiar concept in the vocabulary of the personal social services in recent years. Some of the more obvious reasons for this having been the post‐Seebohm emphasis on expansion; the lack of clarity about service outputs and objectives; and the relative failure of the economics profession, with only a few exceptions, to concern itself with developments in this area in contrast with, say, the National Health Service. However, now that the post‐oil crisis economic recession has reduced prospects for growth in the personal and other social and public services almost to zero, in the short to medium term, the efficient use of resources assumes greater importance. This is in complete contrast to recent experience when, during the years of rapid expansion, efficiency was, inevitably, a poor second to the objective of maximising inputs. That is not to suggest that resources were deliberately wasted, but the development of new services in a growing number of areas, often on an ad hoc basis, meant that some inefficiency was unavoidable. Now the economic climate has changed and it is vital that the recession is used as a period of consolidation. Existing practices need to be rigorously examined in the search for more cost‐effective methods of achieving objectives. If this can be done at all successfully it will provide managers in the social services with much greater flexibility to meet the increasing pressures of future demands and conflicting priorities, and might even prevent that blunt instrument, the pro rata cut, being over employed. Of course, even the most efficient authority may not be able to avoid some cuts in service provision, but these will be most easily kept to a minimum by identifying areas where genuine savings can be made.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

In this paper a sector will be dealt with, which is lately characterized by an increase in decision‐making in a scientific rationalized way, i.e. the sector of personal social services. Decision‐making is in many cases closely related and attributable to the fact that the social services are increasingly availing themselves of personal computers. An innovation which is most often discussed in terms of technological rationalization and facilitation for the provision of personal social services. This may be the case as long as the computer is used as just another, be it a different, mode, to provide services, e.g. to do away with routine, administrative, and management tasks, such as record keeping (Bloom 1975), information retrieval systems (Rubin 1976), fiscal management (Mutschler 1983), etc.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Integrated care continues to be a central aim within health and social care policy in England. Personal budgets and personal health budgets aim to place service users at the centre of decision-making and are part of a wider long-term initiative working towards personalised and integrated care. Personal budgets began in social care with the national pilot programme of individual budgets, which aimed to incorporate several funding streams into one budget, but in practice local authorities limited these to social care expenditure. Personal budgets then moved into the health care sector with the introduction of a three-year personal health budgets pilot programme that started in 2009. The purpose of the paper is to explore the post-pilot implementation of personal health budgets and explore their role in facilitating service integration. We examine this through the RE-AIM framework.

During 2015 and 2016, eight organisational representatives, 23 personal health budget holders and three service providers were interviewed, 42 personal health budget support plans were collected and 14 service providers completed an online survey.

Overall, personal health budgets continued to be viewed positively but progress in implementation was slower than expected. Effective leadership, clear communication and longer-term implementation were seen as vital ingredients in ensuring personal health budgets are fully embedded and contribute to wider service integration.

The paper highlights the importance of policy implementation over the longer-term, while illustrating how the venture of personal health budgets in England could be a mechanism for implementing service integration. The findings can serve to guide future policy initiatives on person-centred care and service integration.

The purpose of this paper is to identify features of community mental health teams (CMHTs) for older people valued by their managers, and those they would most like to change.

Content analysis was used to analyse “free text” responses to open questions from a national survey about CMHTs’ organisational structures and processes. Responses were sorted into statements which were categorised into content areas and higher level dimensions.

Free text information was provided by 376 teams (an 88 per cent response rate). Eight higher level dimensions were identified. One related specifically to integration with social care services, whilst several more included material about other aspects of intra-team integration (e.g. documentation and location). The largest proportion of statements related to staffing and teamwork. Statements about inter-personal and inter-professional issues were largely positive, whilst statements about resources, bureaucracy and integration with social care services typically detailed desired changes.

Four key issues emerged comprising a high level of support from managers to develop integrated practices; a need to define the focus of CMHTs for older people and to be fully resourced; and the importance of a nurturing and supportive team environment.

The methodology provides a bridge between qualitative and quantitative research, exploring the volume of statements on particular topics and their meaning.

Care management has developed in a variety of forms. This diary study explores differences in the approach taken to care management in three distinct social service settings: community‐based older people's teams, hospital social work teams also for older people and community‐based teams for adults with mental health problems. Conclusions are drawn both for social care and for health services developing case management for people with long‐term conditions.

This paper reviews the NHS Plan from the perspective of the Government’s wider programme of “modernising” public services. Although broadly focussed, particularly highlights older people. Two dimensions of modernisation are identified. The NHS Plan is seen to be patient‐cited – rather than citizen‐centred. Argues further, that, if the economic, social and environmental causes of ill health are to be addressed more generally and if citizens are to be enabled to live in healthy, sustainable communities, planning for health services should logically be subordinate to planning for health. Health improvement plans should, therefore, be integrated within the wider community strategies for which local authorities are to have lead responsibility. Similarly, as ill health is recognised to be an important aspect of poverty, inequality and social exclusion, there is a strong case for the integration of the regional offices of the NHSE within the wider structure of regional governance. Finally, the personal social services should ensure that the values of social work and social care are not displaced by medical and nursing models which, historically, have shown little understanding of community development processes.

This paper considers cash for care as reflected in direct payments and the more recent development of individual budgets in England. While the momentum to roll out individual budgets gathers pace in England, Wales has embarked on a more cautious approach in wishing to evaluate the impact of individual budgets on social services. The paper identifies some of the far reaching implications of cash for care in general and individual budgets in particular, for service users, carers ‐ both paid and informal ‐ and for the social work profession. The policy incoherence in relation to risk and safeguarding is highlighted. This paper supports the approach currently adopted by the Welsh Assembly Government in relation to the ‘rolling out’ of individual budgets. The Assembly's 10‐year strategy for social services focuses on the rights of citizens and the needs of communities. This paper argues that fulfilling that vision should not be wholly contingent upon an unproven extension into the field of individual budgets.

The subject of part‐time work is one which has become increasingly important in industrialised economies where it accounts for a substantial and growing proportion of total employment. It is estimated that in 1970, average annual hours worked per employee amounted to only 60% of those for 1870. Two major factors are attributed to explaining the underlying trend towards a reduction in working time: (a) the increase in the number of voluntary part‐time employees and (b) the decrease in average annual number of days worked per employee (Kok and de Neubourg, 1986). The authors noted that the growth rate of part‐time employment in many countries was greater than the corresponding rate of growth in full‐time employment.