Consensus, collaboration and community care for elderly people by Adrian R. Turrell

“…The Thesis was stimulated by experiences of statutory carers as a volunteer supporting elderly people living in the community, My observations of these carers (such as social workers, district nurses, home helps and G.P.s) and the support they provided to elderly people in the community suggested that there was a fundamental contradiction between, on the one hand, their avowal of the virtue of maintaining elderly people at home for as long as possible (in the 'spirit' of community care policy) and, on the other hand, their ability and willingness to collaborate to achieve this end, To explain this situation, this Thesis explores three aspects of the theory and practice of community care for elderly people: •the historical and conceptual diversity of community care policies in England and Wales as revealed by government publications over the period 1800-1982 and a range of professional and academic literature; •the degree to which community care policies have been officially regarded as dependent upon inter-agency and inter-professional collaboration, and whether in practice community care practitioners have lent such policies their support and agreed on their meaning and implications; •I the relevance of these two aspects to implementing local community care policies. …”
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