Description:
For the majority of people who have a range of support needs it is immaterial whether the response to their needs is organised by the health sector or the social care sector. Their priority is that there is a response. Yet history has created an organisational split between health and social care services. For many with a range of needs this is likely to create artificial boundaries and barriers and complexities. At the individual level this may lead to fragmentation or duplication of support provision; at the planning level it can result in provision which is less than 'seamless'.

Recent years have witnessed accelerating demands from Governments throughout the United Kingdom for closer working between health and social care agencies. Policies have ranged from permissive strategies encouraging consultation and joint planning to legislation requiring the pooling of funds and creating single agency responsibility. Partnership working across health and social care is one of the areas where the most distinctive differences have emerged between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom and this divergence provides the focus for this volume. A specific Scottish Executive initiative, the Joint Future Agenda, has focused on meeting adult support needs through effective joint working. The report of a Ministerial Joint Future Group in 2000, Community Care: A Joint Future has provided the foundation for subsequent community care initiatives. This book explores the details of this initiative in the context of what is known about the impact and effectiveness of integrated working.

In common with other titles in this series the book is written at a level that will stimulate those wrestling with these themes from a professional perspective as well as providing essential reading for those studying health and social policy.

Alison Petch, formerly Nuffield Professor of Community Care at the University of Glasgow, is Director of research in practice for adults, an organisation focusing on evidence-informed practice in adult social care.