Linking datasets, people and resources

Abstract

Successive Government policy documents have stressed the objective of caring for older people in the community ratherthan in residential settings. One of the key objectives of the White Paper, Caring for People, published in 1989 was “ to promote the development of domiciliary, day and respite services to enable people to live in their own homes whenever feasible and sensible” (Secretaries of State 1989). This objective was subsequently reflected in the NHS and Community Care Act, passed in 1990. In the late 1990s, following the election of the Labour Government in May 1997, the White Paper, Modernising Social Services, reiterated this objective, with its aim “to enable adults assessed as needing social care support to live as safe, full and as normal a life as possible in their own homes whenever feasible” (Department of Health 1998). The aim of the current paper is to look at patterns of care for frail older people living at home using data from the 1998/9General Household Survey (GHS). Patterns of care include both packages of care provided by formal services and careprovided by informal carers