Direct Payments and Personalisation of Care by Charlotte Pearson

Direct Payments and Personalisation of Care by Charlotte Pearson

Direct Payments are cash payments made in lieu of social service provisions, to individuals who have been assessed as needing services. The implementation of direct payments in the United Kingdom in 1997 represented a major victory for the disability movement in securing enhanced choice and control in service provision. Successive governments have promoted direct payments as part of wider strategies to develop local care markets and enable a 'personalisation of care'. Since 1997 a number of changes have emerged to the original policy framework, allowing wider access and a more diverse user population. Whilst these changes have occurred across the UK, different take-up patterns have emerged in the various UK countries where administration of social services has been devolved. In exploring these patterns, this study focuses on the impact of direct payments in Scotland. Drawing on findings from a major UK wide two-year study of direct payments, the authors highlight some of the key tensions which have characterised policy implementation in Scotland, alongside a comparative overview with the rest of the UK. The approach adopted in the UK has features that are of interest to those contemplating effective methods for care provision in other states. In common with other titles in this series the book presents a variety of perspectives and approaches with which to consider the key issues. It 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.

'We live in a time of strange paradoxesNowhere are these more evident than in the area of direct payments and the personalisation of care. A policy promoted by the most militant disability movement in history was taken up and implemented by a right-wing onservative government in the 1990s and now, under a New Labour government committed to neo-liberal policies, is increasingly promoted as the
model for all adult care services. The policy is hailed by ctivists as the most empowering development ever seen in the sphere of disability and opposed by public sector trade unionists as a Trojan horse for privatisation. A degree of confusion and disorientation is therefore understandable. This edited collection by Charlotte Pearson provides a useful guide through this ideological fog of competing policy discourses.' Research, Policy and Planning

Charlotte Pearson, the editor, is a Lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow. Other contributors are Sheila Riddell ( U. Edinburgh; Victoria Williams (U. Glasgow)

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781903765623
ISBN 10	1903765625
Title	Direct Payments and Personalisation of Care
Author	Charlotte Pearson
Series	Policy And Practice In Health And Social Care
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Liverpool University Press
Year published	2006-11-02
Number of pages	86
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.