HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE

Health and Social Care

Health and Social Care

Statutory

It is the function of the public authorities to promote the well-being, health and welfare of the population. The provision of social welfare and health care services in practice is the task of the individual municipalities (Anderson, 2003, 89-105). Most of these social welfare and health care services are statutory, meaning that there are laws which require the municipalities to provide the services in question. In addition to statutory services, individual municipalities may choose to provide other social welfare and health care services, too.

This part provide a brief understanding of United Kingdom statutory social welfare and health care services. It does not cover any services which are non-statutory, or certain statutory municipal services closely related to the social welfare and health care system, such as income security benefits (Brown, 2003, 52-56). Furthermore, it does not deal with services which are fully funded by the central government, such as those under the legislation on military injuries (Anderson, 2003, 89-105). The Social Welfare Act states that it is the duty of municipalities to provide general social welfare services, which are: social work, child guidance and family counselling, home help services, housing services, institutional care, family care and support for informal care.

Private

The UK Government faces increased pressure to provide health and social care services more cheaply yet at a high level of quality. Increased private sector involvement in the funding and delivery of services is seen as a major part of the solution. When assessing the relative merits of approaches to private versus public sector provision, risk may be an important differentiator. This article explores some key points of comparison on risk issues and builds a framework for the assessment of risk-related issues (Brown, 2003, 52-56). A twin case study approach is adopted: a care home for older people and a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) hospital. The analysis suggests that in the case of both private financing and of private delivery of health and social care services, the increased involvement of the private sector necessitates rigorous risk assessment and management (Hussey, 2008, 53-61).

Informal

Informal or unpaid care is a key building block of current community care policy in the UK and there is considerable policy interest in the provision of informal care, particularly its future supply. The main aim of the informal care research cluster is to undertake analyses of demand for and supply of informal care for adults, particularly older people, now and in future years (Hussey, 2004, 88-99). Key aspects of the analyses of informal care are the distinction between care provided by different sources (spouses, adult children, parents) and the use of a wide variety of data, including the General Household Survey, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and the 2001 Census (Hussey, 2004, 88-99).

Formal

Formal Sector Social Health Insurance Programme: This programme covers employees of the formal sector, i.e., the public sector and the organized private sector. It is mandatory for every organization with ten (10) or more ...