Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one Introduction
- two Evacuation and elderly people in the Second World War
- three Civilian morale and elderly people: the emergence of ‘reforms’ in residential and domiciliary welfare services
- four The 1948 National Assistance Act and the provision of welfare services for elderly people
- five Issues in residential care
- six Avoiding institutional care: the changing role of the state, the family and voluntary organisations
- seven The restructuring of welfare services for elderly people
- eight Community care and older people: reflections on the past, present and future
- Bibliography
- Appendix
- Index
seven - The restructuring of welfare services for elderly people
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one Introduction
- two Evacuation and elderly people in the Second World War
- three Civilian morale and elderly people: the emergence of ‘reforms’ in residential and domiciliary welfare services
- four The 1948 National Assistance Act and the provision of welfare services for elderly people
- five Issues in residential care
- six Avoiding institutional care: the changing role of the state, the family and voluntary organisations
- seven The restructuring of welfare services for elderly people
- eight Community care and older people: reflections on the past, present and future
- Bibliography
- Appendix
- Index
Summary
Introduction
The Seebohm Report recommended the establishment of:
… a new department to meet the social needs of individuals, families, and communities, which would incorporate the present functions of children's and welfare departments, together with elements from the education, health and housing departments, with important additional responsibilities designed to ensure an effective family service. (Seebohm Report, 1968, p 43)
Most of these recommendations were incorporated into the 1970 Local Authority Social Services Act and the new social services departments came into operation in April 1971. These departments were headed by directors of social services whose backgrounds were in the personal social services and who normally possessed some form of social work qualification. Residential homes for elderly people, the home help service, meals and lunch club provision, laundry facilities, aids and adaptations and counselling services were all included in this new department.
A major reorganisation of the NHS was under consideration at the same time, with a focus on the need to reduce the inefficiencies associated with the tripartite structure established by the 1946 Act. (For general accounts of NHS reorganisation, see Brown, 1979 and Levitt and Wall, 1985.) Increasingly, the local authority health services had become seen as “a rag-bag of functions” (Brown, 1979, p 6) that needed to be integrated into the hospital and GP services. The end result of these deliberations was the 1973 Health Service Reorganisation Act, by which Brown has claimed that “basically, the local authority services were nationalised and brought under the same management as hospital services, while the administration of family practitioner services was aligned with the new authorities” (p 22). District nurses and health visitors were no longer to work in a local authority department; they were to be responsible to a district nursing officer who would be a member of a district management team of the health authority. It was the district nursing officer who would have primary responsibility for the allocation of district nursing and health visitor staff; this might or might not involve their location in GP practices. The post of medical officer of health was abolished. Each district management team instead included a community physician whose task was to assess needs and evaluate service provision within the community.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- From Poor Law to Community CareThe Development of Welfare Services for Elderly People 1939-1971, pp. 277 - 318Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 1998