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 forty years
- health services and social services workers have not worked well together and there have been few 'multidisciplinary' assessments 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"
Read more about this topic: Care In The Community
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