scholarly journals Choice, needs or equality? Discursive struggles about defining home care for older people in Sweden

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Elin Peterson ◽  
Helene Brodin
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Older People ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Universal Service ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Care Policy ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Care For Older People

Abstract Focusing on Swedish home care for older people, this article explores the discursive (re)production of home care as an institution. Equality and universal service provision have been described as defining features of the Nordic care regime. At the same time, Nordic research has highlighted a shift in social care policy, from a focus on universalism and egalitarian ideals towards a focus on freedom of choice, diversity and individualised services. This article takes as a starting point that home care for older people is formed by different and potentially conflicting ideas. We understand home care as a contested formation and define institutional change in terms of ongoing discursive struggles. The analysis draws on qualitative semi-structured interviews with key informants, including politicians, local authority officials and representatives of interest organisations. Informants were engaged in policy making, implementation or advocacy related to care for older people. We examine the meanings attached to home care for older people and the analysis reveals three different discourses – on choice, needs and equality. By comparing and contrasting discourses, we reveal silences, conflicts and tensions, and highlight the politics involved in (re)creating home care as an institution.

scholarly journals The importance of a room with a view for older people with limited mobility

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 273-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Musselwhite
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Limited Mobility ◽  
Human Element ◽  
Health And Social Care ◽  
Vantage Points ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how older people who are almost entirely housebound use a view from their window to make sense of the world and stay connected to the outside space that they cannot physically inhabit. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews with 42 individuals were carried out who were living at home, were relatively immobile and had an interesting view outside they liked from one or more of their windows. Findings The findings suggest that immobile older people enjoy watching a motion-full, changing, world going on outside of their own mobility and interact and create meaning and sense, relating themselves to the outside world. Practical implications Findings suggest that those working in health and social care must realise the importance of older people observing the outdoors and create situations where that is enabled and maintained through improving vantage points and potentially using technology. Originality/value This study builds and updates work by Rowles (1981) showing that preference for views from the window involves the immediate surveillance zone but also further afield. The view can be rural or urban but should include a human element from which older people can interact through storytelling. The view often contains different flows, between mundane and mystery and intrigue, and between expected and random.

Promoting Excellence in Home Care for Older People

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 358-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette M. Totten ◽  
Dhara Naik
Keyword(s):  
Home Care ◽  
Older People ◽  
Care For Older People

scholarly journals Comprehensive assessment of older people with complex care needs: the multi-disciplinarity of the Single Assessment Process in England

2010 ◽  
Vol 30 (7) ◽  
pp. 1115-1134 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID CHALLIS ◽  
MICHELE ABENDSTERN ◽  
PAUL CLARKSON ◽  
JANE HUGHES ◽  
CAROLINE SUTCLIFFE
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Care Home ◽  
Comprehensive Assessment ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Care Plan ◽  
Assessment Practice ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Health And Social Care

ABSTRACTThe quality of assessment of older people with health and social care needs has for some time been a concern of policy makers, practitioners, older people and carers in the United Kingdom and internationally. This article seeks to address a key aspect of these concerns, namely whether sufficient expertise is deployed when, as a basis for a care plan and service allocation, an older person's eligibility for local authority adult social-care services requires a comprehensive needs assessment of their usually complex and multiple problems. Is an adequate range of professionals engaged, and is a multi-disciplinary approach applied? The Single Assessment Process (SAP) was introduced in England in 2004 to promote a multi-disciplinary model of service delivery. After its introduction, a survey in 2005–06 was conducted to establish the prevalence and patterns of comprehensive assessment practice across England. The reported arrangements for multi-disciplinary working among local authority areas in England were categorised and reviewed. The findings suggest, first, that the provision of comprehensive assessments of older people that require the expertise of multiple professionals is limited, except where the possibility arose of placement in a care-home-with-nursing, and second that by and large a systematic multi-disciplinary approach was absent. Policy initiatives to address the difficulties in assessment need to be more prescriptive if they are to produce the intended outcomes.

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