Category: Social Care

Social work and social care

Taking a strengths-based approach; a literature review

Source: The King’s Fund Health Management and Policy Alert

The primary aim of this review is to examine the development and the potential of strengths-based models in social work and the social care sector. The literature review will address questions around how these approaches impact on practice, and what this means for individuals in receipt of social care services and their carers or families.

This review identifies three overarching features of the terrain:
Generally, there are three broad groupings of literature: conceptual material; material on models; and grey literature; plus a small number of evaluative papers


Strengths-based approaches are comparatively more prevalent in social work than social care (which may not be surprising given its origins).

Strengths-based approaches are being embraced by policy makers but questions remain about: its definition (how it is distinct from other approaches, and how it should be conceptualised); its effectiveness and feasibility (including its intersection with local authority eligibility thresholds); and how it should/can be evaluated.

NIHR; Feb 2021

The Department of Health and Social Care’s legislative proposals for a Health and Care Bill

Integration and innovation: working together to improve health and social care for all

This White Paper sets out legislative proposals for a Health and Care Bill. The proposals are designed to support the health and care system to work together to provide high-quality health and care, so people can live longer, healthier, active and more independent lives.

The IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities

A new year’s message

Source: The King’s Fund Health and Wellbeing Bulletin

This report examines the impact of the pandemic on educational, economic, social and health inequalities in the UK. It outlines data and evidence on the groups that have been most heavily impacted by widening inequalities and Covid-19.

The IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities: a New Year’s message

Key findings include:

  • The COVID crisis has exacerbated inequalities between the high- and low-paid and between graduates and non-graduates.
  • The crisis has hit the self-employed and others in insecure and non-traditional forms of employment especially hard.
  • Educational inequalities will almost certainly have been exacerbated by the crisis
  • Between March and July, mortality rates from COVID-19 were twice as high in the most deprived areas as in the least deprived.
  • The crisis has had very different impacts on different ethnic groups.
  • Through 2020, pensioners have on average reported becoming financially better off, whilst the young have borne the brunt of job and income loss. (The IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities)

To find out more click here.

State of Care

CQC annual assessment of health and social care

State of Care 2019/20.
Care Quality Commission (CQC); 2020.
[CQC annual assessment of health care and social care in England. The report looks at the trends, shares examples of good and outstanding care, and highlights where care needs to improve. It describes the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, including the unequal impact, DOLS and innovation.]

Health and Social Care Select Committee

Delivering core NHS services during the pandemic and beyond

This report aims to catalogue the impact and unprecedented challenge caused by Covid-19 to the provision of essential services. It calls for urgent action to assess and tackle a backlog of appointments and an unknown patient demand for all health services, specifically across cancer treatments, mental health services, dentistry services, GP services and elective surgery. It also looks at the case made for routine testing of all NHS staff.

For more information click here.

Covid-19

Surviving the pandemic: new challenges for adult social care and the social care market

For the past decade there has been a constant cry from the adult social care sector that it is underfunded and that it is on the brink of collapse. This discussion paper looks at how councils have avoided the predicted collapse over the period of austerity and explores new problems that have emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic. How can the care provider sector survive after the pandemic?

Read the paper here

Policy briefing: social care funding and mental health

Centre for Mental Health, September 2019

Centre for Mental Health briefing exploring what a fair and sustainable funding settlement for social care needs to look like in order to deliver parity of esteem for mental health and sufficient funding to support people of working age as well as those in later life. It reviews the current funding and provision of mental health social work for people of working age in England. It finds that mental health social work has a vital role in helping people to live independently and to secure their rights and dignity. A successful funding settlement for social care must begin with a recognition that a significant proportion of adult social care supports people of working age: it is not just for those in later life. Social services have specific responsibilities in relation to mental health, as they do for people with learning disabilities and other care needs, at all stages of life.

Click here to view the full report.

Care in places: inequalities in local authority adult social care spending power

The Salvation Army, July 2019

The International Longevity Centre UK (ILC) was commissioned by The Salvation Army to explore local-level inequalities in adult social care. It reveals there is significantly less money to care for older people who live in rural areas across England. Adult social care is largely funded by local business rates, council tax and other local charges but areas with lower house prices, fewer businesses and lower populations cannot raise as much money as more urban areas. This has led to deep levels of funding inequality across the entire country and prevents most local authorities from providing adequate social care for older residents.

Click here to view the full report.

Above and beyond: how voluntary sector providers of disability support add value to communities

Voluntary Organisations Disability Group, May 2019
This report looks at real-life stories from four disability support providers across England. The report outlines the voluntary care sector’s key impacts on social care, including engaging local partners and harnessing the potential of community resources, reducing social isolation and promoting inclusion, and changing perceptions of disability.
Click here to view the full text.