Welfare conditionality and social marginality: the folly of the tutelary state?

In a contemporarnb 1`vby evolution of the tutelary state, welfare reform in the United Kingdom has been characterised by moves towards greater conditionality and sanctioning. This is influenced by the attributing responsibility for poverty and unemployment to the behaviour of marginalised individuals. Mead (1992) has argued that the poor are dependants who ought to receive support on condition of certain restrictions imposed by a protective state that will incentivise engagement with support mechanisms. This article examines how the contemporary tutelary and therapeutic state has responded to new forms of social marginality. Drawing on a series of in-depth interviews conducted with welfare claimants with an offending background in England and Scotland, the article examines their encounters with the welfare system and argues that alienation, rather than engagement with support, increasingly characterises their experiences

“There is still a perception that homelessness is a housing problem”: devolution, homelessness and health in the UK

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide an exploratory account of the links between devolution, homelessness and health in the UK. Specifically, it focusses on the policy context and governance structures that shape the systems of healthcare for homeless people in London, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Design/methodology/approach - Empirically the paper draws on semi-structured interviews with a small sample of policy and practice actors from the devolved territories. Qualitative interviews were supplemented by a comparative policy analysis of the homelessness and health agenda within the devolved regions. Theoretically, it takes inspiration from Chaney's concept of the "issue salience of homelessness" and explores the comparative character of healthcare as pertains to homeless people across the devolved territories. Findings - The paper provides clear evidence of areas of divergence and convergence in policy and practice between the devolved regions. These features are shown to be strongly mediated by the interplay of two factors: first, the scope and scale of national and local homelessness prevention strategies; and second, intra-national variation in public health responses to homelessness. Originality/value - The paper offers considerable insight from a comparative policy perspective into the nature of healthcare provision for homeless people in the devolved regions

A codex of care: assessing the Liverpool hospital admission and discharge protocol for homeless people

There has recently been an upsurge of interest in the relationship between homelessness and hospital discharge policies and processes in England. In this paper, we investigate the significance of these developments by assessing the Liverpool Hospital Admission and Discharge Protocol for Homeless People. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with hospital-based clinicians and community-based health and social care practitioners, we identify four central features of the Liverpool protocol: (1) local prioritisation, (2) good systems of communication, (3) partnership working and (4) access to appropriate post-discharge care and support. Overall, we contribute to the literature of care coordination by filling a gap in the knowledge base in relation to the multiple and complex needs of homeless people, while delivering important insights into the delivery of integrated care