Policy Press
Four The changing role of local authority residential care
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Abstract
The focus of this chapter is on the changing nature of local authority residential care from 1971 to 1993 in terms of such issues as capital investment, the level of dependency of residents, the impact of market competition and the growing emphasis on consumer rights.
Our previous research explored the role of such care in the earlier period from the outbreak of the SecondWorldWar through to the creation of social services departments in April 1971 (Means and Smith, 1998a). The study focused on how the 1948 National Assistance Act attempted to replace the old public assistance institution with a new form of non- stigmatising residential home to be run by local authorities:
The old institutions are to go altogether. In their place will be attractive hostels or hotels, each accommodating 25 to 30 old people, who will live there as guests not inmates. Each guest will pay for his accommodation – those with private income out of that, those without private income out of the payments they get from the National Assistance Board – and nobody need know whether they have private means or not. Thus, the stigma of ‘relief ’ – very real too, and acutely felt by many old people – will vanish at last. (Public Assistance Officer, quoted in Means and Smith, 1998a, p 155)
Yet the expected new homes were not built in the 1950s because of general restrictions on capital investment programmes during the post- war period of austerity and because older people were seen as a low priority for whatever capital was available.
Abstract
The focus of this chapter is on the changing nature of local authority residential care from 1971 to 1993 in terms of such issues as capital investment, the level of dependency of residents, the impact of market competition and the growing emphasis on consumer rights.
Our previous research explored the role of such care in the earlier period from the outbreak of the SecondWorldWar through to the creation of social services departments in April 1971 (Means and Smith, 1998a). The study focused on how the 1948 National Assistance Act attempted to replace the old public assistance institution with a new form of non- stigmatising residential home to be run by local authorities:
The old institutions are to go altogether. In their place will be attractive hostels or hotels, each accommodating 25 to 30 old people, who will live there as guests not inmates. Each guest will pay for his accommodation – those with private income out of that, those without private income out of the payments they get from the National Assistance Board – and nobody need know whether they have private means or not. Thus, the stigma of ‘relief ’ – very real too, and acutely felt by many old people – will vanish at last. (Public Assistance Officer, quoted in Means and Smith, 1998a, p 155)
Yet the expected new homes were not built in the 1950s because of general restrictions on capital investment programmes during the post- war period of austerity and because older people were seen as a low priority for whatever capital was available.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of tables and figures vi
- Advisory Group members viii
- Acknowledgements ix
- Setting the scene 1
- Community care and the modernisation of welfare 13
- Targeting, rationing and charging for home care services 27
- The changing role of local authority residential care 49
- The shifting boundaries between health and social care 73
- Towards a mixed economy of social care for older people? 99
- Towards quasi-markets in community care 129
- Developing community care for the future: lessons and issues from the past 163
- References 179
- Index 193
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- List of tables and figures vi
- Advisory Group members viii
- Acknowledgements ix
- Setting the scene 1
- Community care and the modernisation of welfare 13
- Targeting, rationing and charging for home care services 27
- The changing role of local authority residential care 49
- The shifting boundaries between health and social care 73
- Towards a mixed economy of social care for older people? 99
- Towards quasi-markets in community care 129
- Developing community care for the future: lessons and issues from the past 163
- References 179
- Index 193
