Who is entitled to long-term health care? Emerging policy and moral debate.

Abstract

This paper focuses on emerging British health policy which emphasizes the use of locally determined restrictive criteria to assess access to state provision for long-term health care and the individual's responsibility to plan to meet their own long-term health care needs. Inconsistency in current health policy and ambiguity in the relevant central guidance are explored. This is contextualized in a philosophical framework which seeks to highlight the moral justification underpinning different patterns for the distribution of health care. These issues are of direct relevance to nurse managers because these fundamental changes surface in dilemmas in the management of care and interaction in the multidisciplinary team.