Progress Towards Partnership? The Development of Relations between Primary Care Organisations and Social Services Concerning Older People's Services in the UK

Abstract

This paper will present evidence from the interim results of a large scale longitudinal project designed to track the development of partnership working between the new primary care organisations (Primary Care Groups and Trusts) entrusted with the commissioning and in some cases provision of health care, and local authority social services departments, regarding health and social care services for older people in the UK. Drawing on theoretical work concerning the role of partnership working in the governance of welfare, the author uses a framework originally devised by the Nuffield Centre for Health at the University of Leeds to analyse the interim data, and to draw conclusions about the feasibility of current policy pushes towards partnership working and service integration around health and social care for older people.