This short guide cuts through the confusing mass of legislation to provide a concise and jargon-free explanation of current care practice and the law. It explains the legislation relevant to practitioners, including rules about how people in need get an assessment from local authorities, the assessment of need and charging for services.

This short guide cuts through the confusing mass of legislation to provide a concise and jargon-free explanation of current community care practice and the law. In clear and simple language, it explains the legislation directly relevant to practitioners, including: rules about how people in need get an assessment from local authorities; the assessment of need itself; eligibility for actually getting a service (and the "fair access to care" policy); charging for services; ordinary residence; topping up of care home fees; assessing informal carers; and the rules about asylum seekers. It provides an overview and analysis of high profile issues such as direct payments, personal budgets and the policy of personalisation and National Health Service provision, including the vexed issue of NHS continuing health care. It also highlights the duties placed on local authorities and the NHS, the various tensions underlying community care, and the consequent shortcuts - both lawful and unlawful - that local authorities and the NHS feel obliged to take. Quick Guide to Community Care Practice and the Law is an essential resource for busy practitioners at all levels as well as managers in both the statutory and voluntary sectors, policy-makers in local authorities and the NHS, advocates, lawyers and social work students.

This is a basic guide to community care aimed at both health and social care practitioners. It offers a clear and reader-friendly introduction to policy and practice, covering both the background to, and the structure and dynamics of, contemporary policy and provision. Networks and boundaries of care are discussed, including formal and informal care and multiprofessional working, as are the skills of assessment and care management and issues such as user empowerment and abuse.

This fourth edition of Community Care Practice and the Law has been fully updated to reflect the rapid and continuing legal, policy and practice changes affecting community care. It provides comprehensive and jargon-free explanations of community care legislation, as well as other areas of law directly relevant to practitioners, including the NHS, disabled facilities grants and housing adaptations, asylum and immigration, mental capacity, human rights, disability discrimination, health and safety at work and negligence – and a range of legal provisions relevant to the protection and safeguarding of adults. Apart from the burgeoning legal case law and ombudsman investigations, changes from the last edition include coverage of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, legal implications of 'self directed care' and 'individual budgets', changes to direct payments and 'ordinary residence' determinations. In particular, new guidance applies to the high profile issue of NHS continuing health care. The book is an essential guide for practitioners and managers in both the statutory and voluntary sectors, policy makers in local authorities and the NHS, advocates, lawyers and social work students.

As a field, health and social care is facing considerable challenge and debate, in the UK and internationally. This clear and succinct text offers a valuable introductory guide to this multidisciplinary subject, helping people who want to study or work in health and social care understand why these services matter, how they have developed and how they work. Framed by vital historical and social policy context, the book considers: · The social context in which health and social care are delivered · The history and nature of current services · Organising, funding and delivering services · How to be a professional in practice Including chapter summaries and links to further reading, this text will be invaluable to undergraduate students on programmes in Health and Social Care, Social Work, Nursing, Allied Health Professions, Social Policy and related applied social science subjects, as well as to A-level and Foundation programmes prior to University.

Covers the law in both England and in Wales. It sets out the law on assessment and the provision of services, outlines the options available for paying for care and also considers some of the wider issues which tend to affect community care, such as mental capacity, access to a person in need, and the interface between health and social care.