health care

People with long-term physical health conditions – the most frequent users of health care services – commonly experience mental health problems such as depression and anxiety, or dementia in the case of older people. As a result of these co-morbid problems, the prognosis for their long-term condition and the quality of life they experience can both deteriorate markedly. In addition, the costs of providing care to this group of people are increased as a result of less effective self-care and other complicating factors related to poor mental health.

This study aims to evaluate the different integrated approaches to health care services supporting older people in care homes, and identify barriers and facilitators to integrated working.

The Northern Ireland Social Care Council (NISCC), the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) and the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) commissioned this research with the aim of strengthening user involvement in Northern Ireland. Report 18 looks across health and social care services for children, young people and adults. Report published by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) in February 2008.

Website of a company that seeks to harness the talents of people and communities to provide imaginative solutions to complex social issues and care needs.

A Community Interest Company established by and working in close partnership with the charity NAAPS UK.

Routes was the name given to a simulation-based project designed by Loop2 to explore how the evolution of the adult social care and health care systems could be managed to create real synergies between them.

It was commissioned by The King’s Fund, in partnership with the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) and the Local Government Association (LGA). The project was steered by an advisory group drawn from these bodies.

This briefing on the Health and Social Care Bill has been prepared for the Second Reading debate on the Bill in the House of Commons on 31 January 2011. The Bill is intended to give effect to the reforms requiring primary legislation that were proposed in the NHS White Paper Equity and excellence: Liberating the NHS. This White Paper set out the Government’s aims to reduce central control of the NHS, to engage doctors in the commissioning of health services, and to give patients greater choice. Published in January 2011. Applies to health and social care in England.

The report focuses on how to involve older people alongside the professionals, as equals, in identifying what services they want and value. It notes that older people are able to take account of costs of service provision in an environment where resources are limited, and with this information they are able to prioritise the service provision which they require.

This guide had been developed to help commissioners of health and social care services to understand how to effectively commission services for people with dementia and their carers.

Geoff Watts explores the almost universal experience of living with pain and the different ways we react and cope with it in three programmes. The first programme in the series looks at the range of experience of human pain and how scientists understand it. The second programme discusses acute pain. In the third programme the process of coping with pain is examined. Geoff Watts discovers how pain management clinics are using a huge variety of different techniques, including medication, art therapy and acupuncture, to help chronic sufferers live as normally as possible.

Any new settlement on long-term care and support must address the apportionment of responsibility for its delivery as well as its funding. With the state's capacity limited and family input likely to decline, the wider community must expect to play a growing role. This offers an opportunity to end social care's marginalisation, argues David Brindle.