Gillian Dalley – författare

Community care has long been the preferred policy for caring for dependent people. This book, first published in 1988, challenges accepted ideas about community care, arguing that it is based on assumptions about an 'ideal model' of family life which in practice disadvantages both disabled and older people and women carers alike.New to this Edition:- Takes full account of major developments in community care since 1988- Draws on an eclectic range of feminist, historical and ethnographic sources- Proposes alternative and collective approaches to caring

This book examines a familiar and contemporary social policy issue—the crisis besetting social care—but differs from usual accounts by including additional perspectives (philosophical, ethical and political) not often raised but nonetheless crucial to understanding the issue. Its central argument is that while a health/care divide dates back to legislative separation at the inception of the welfare state in the 1940s, the major cause of the current crisis has been the slow but insidious ideological and practical splitting off and fracturing of social care from other state welfare institutions, notably the NHS, and its consequent entrapment in the treacherous straits of ‘profit and loss’, self-interest and individualism. These issues and others, the book argues, contribute to the building of a strong case for bringing social care into the public sector. Towards the end, the book goes on to consider the impact, from 2020, of the Covid 19 pandemic on a caring crisis that was already well-established.  The consequences of this global shock are still working through and are likely to be profound. Solutions, as the book describes, which were already being formulated prior to the arrival of the pandemic, are even more salient now. The book will therefore be of interest to students and researchers of social policy and public policy, health and social care professionals and policymakers – and users of social care themselves.