social care services

Over the last decade, Britain’s public services have faced a number of challenges related to a changing population profile, growing demands from more assertive users, and the need for a more sustainable model of delivery. The UK’s huge fiscal deficit will now add the most pressing and complicated challenge of all: cutting expenditure on public services while maintaining quality and user satisfaction.

This research was commissioned by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and carried out by a team from the Institute for Sustainability, Health and Environment at the University of the West of England, Bristol, between November 2009 and June 2010.

It complements other work undertaken as part of SCIE’s Sustainable Social Care Programme, including the Learning Network run by the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU).

This briefing argues that support given as social care can help improve health and reduce health disadvantage. Improving access to social care interventions is therefore important to any strategy for reducing health inequality. The concept of health inequalities refers to the avoidable health disadvantage people experience as a result of adverse social factors, such as lack of economic or social capital, or marginalisation. People with higher socio-economic position in society have better life chances and more opportunities to flourish. They also have better health.

Multimedia e-learning resources that cover a range of topics, with each topic containing a number of modules. Each module provides audio, video and interactive technology to assist in exploring the topic area.

Social Care TV is a new online channel for anyone involved in the social care sector, ranging from managers and trainers to front-line staff and people who use care services. As part of the SCIE family of resources, Social Care TV brings to life the work and lives of people involved in all aspects of the social care sector, through a series of short films and links to multimedia and e-learning resources.

A one-stop shop for social care practitioners, presenting key findings, current legislation and examples of what is working well to guide and inform practice. Topics include mental health; children, young people and families; disability; fostering; and older people.

Knowledge reviews pull together knowledge from research, practice and people who use services. They describe what knowledge is available, highlight the evidence that has emerged and draw practice points from the evidence. Topics include residential child care, adult mental health services, improving social and health care services, social work education and looked-after children.

A selection of summaries on a particular policy question, such as whether service user involvement has made a difference to social care services. The papers identify issues and key messages.

SCIE has developed systematic mapping of social care research. Systematic mapping is a way of taking stock of the existing literature on a particular topic. It is a tool that offers policy makers, practitioners and researchers an explicit and transparent means of identifying narrower policy and practice-relevant review questions. It also enables the identification of gaps in the evidence base and the assessment and comparison of in-depth systematic literature reviews within the broader literature.