Virgin Care wins £700m contract to run 200 NHS and social care services
Sir Richard Branson’s health firm, Virgin Care, has won a £700m contract to deliver 200 types of NHS and social care services to more than 200,000 people in Bath and north-east Somerset. This represents a landmark, especially in the delivery of social care, and provoked angry and worried responses about the ‘privatisation’ of social care.
DoH publishes Interim Report on Named Social Worker Pilot Scheme
We have been alerted today by press releases from both the Department of Health and SCIE that the DoH has published an interim report ‘Reflect and Refine’ on the Named Social Worker pilot scheme. This is how the DoH describes the scheme: The Department of Health commissioned the Innovation Unit in partnership with the SCIE to […]
Why don’t we have a National Care Service?
There has been a lot written recently about the affects of local authority funding cuts on social care. Access to care is now very much a postcode lottery and the whole process is disjointed and in some cases totally shambolic. Isn’t it about time we looked at a different way to take care of those […]
Legislation, Legislation, Legislation…
RE Children and Social Work Bill [Lords] in a Public Bill Committee at 9:45 am on 10th January 2017… I received an email alert to a relevant debate in a Lords Committee two days ago (10th Jan), and specifically to the contribution of shadow children’s minister Emma Lewell-Buck. I have to admit that I am […]
Expert answers difficult questions on Direct Payments.
Having discovered recently that the Care Act and its Guidance have superseded all previous legislation and guidance on Direct Payments (you live and learn), I was interested to see the following article in Community Care online, which deserves a wide audience. Whilst technically a ‘Q&A’ session, the article by Belinda Schwehr considered the ‘big questions’ […]
Nicola Sturgeon announces new flexible childcare policy and review of the care system
Amongst the ‘other stuff’ in Nicola Sturgeon’s keynote speech to the SNP conference, e.g. a second referendum bill, there were some interesting and important announcements on social policy. These included changes to childcare policy, and to the care system for looked-after children, and a wider review of the whole care system in Scotland.
Research into ageing and autism
An article in the i newspaper on 11th October caught our attention. Academic Rebecca Ann Charlton of Goldsmiths, University of London, described research being undertaken in conjunction with the Autism Diagnostic Research Centre in Southampton into what happens as people with autism age. “If you mention autism to most people they will think about children, […]
A considered and serious paper about what’s gone wrong in adult social care…
Just published by the Centre for Welfare Reform (CWR): a paper by Belinda Schwehr entitled ‘‘Legal Literacy in Adult Social Care”. Belinda introduces it as ‘a considered and serious paper about what’s gone wrong in adult social care’. The CWR describes it as ‘provocative’. It is hard not to be come angry and depressed at […]
BBC Radio 4’s File in Four: Homes Not Hospitals
Some essential but disturbing listening from BBC Radio 4’s flagship investigatory programme… File on 4 Award-winning current affairs documentary series investigating major issues at home and abroad Homes Not Hospitals 13 September 2016 21:00 Five years after shocking revelations about the abuse of patients at Winterbourne View, File on 4 asks what progress has been […]
Housing LIN: collated material on ‘Supported Housing and Independent Living’
While searching for any reaction or follow-up to the CSJ’s report ‘The Need for Community’ (a study of housing for adults with learning disabilities), we stumbled across an excellent page on the Housing LIN website, entitled ‘Supported housing and independent living’ . Thanks are owed to whoever had the initiative and energy to create and […]