SCIE Report 7: Developing social care: service users' vision for adult support

By Peter Beresford, Michael Shamash, Vic Forrest, Michael Turner and Fran Branfield

Published September 2005

Context

This report was produced by Shaping Our Lives National User Network with SCIE for the Department of Health. The Department requested that this piece of work be done to contribute towards their consultation on service users views on the future of adult social care.

Purpose

This report was written to help inform the Department of Health in the formulation of their green paper Independence, well-being and choice: Our vision for the future of social care for adults in England. A white paper, Your health, your care, your say, has now been published encompassing both children's and adults' services and health and social care.

Audience

This report is intended for all those involved in shaping and developing social care, from policy makers to social services managers and workers, as well as service users.

Messages from the report

What service users want for the future of adult social care

Service users want:

• better funding and resourcing of social care and social care workers
• less charges for services (which excludes some people from support)
• key problems tackled, including:
  • poor-quality provision
  • poor processes for accessing and maintaining services and support
  • inadequate support
  • problems with agency staff
  • having to struggle to secure good support
  • the lack of reliability of social care
  • problems of bureaucracy
  • departmentalism
  • patchy provision and inequity
  • unequal treatment
  • inflexibility
  • poor practice
  • insecurity
  • poor-quality staff
  • lack of continuity and security
• the bullying of service users and service users' fears of bullying in services acknowledged and addressed.

They want to build on:

• examples of good practice - what service users value from workers
• a language of support rather than 'care'
• appropriate training and the capacity of user-led training to bring about cultural change
• involving 'good staff' in social care training
• making things simpler
• safe ways for service users to assess or complain about services
• efforts to address diversity and challenge racism
• good models of day services and employment schemes - choice, not one or the other.

What principles service users want to underpin their vision

• Policy and practice for social care, not just personal care, that is, not just basic support, but the support to be part of your community.
• Effective user involvement.
• A participatory process of social care development.
• The involvement of service users in defining quality.
• Quality and choice on service users' terms.
• The prioritisation of equality and diversity.
• A rights-based approach to social care.
• Social care based on the social model.
• Social care which supports people to be independent by ensuring they have the support to live as they wish.
• Social care which supports and enables service users to participate, contribute, have real choices and to do the things other people can do.
• The development of direct payments.
• More user-led services.
• Listening to their opinions.
• Person-centred social care.
• Improved accessibility.
• An integrated approach to social care.
• A valued and resourced social care sector.

You may also be interested in Position paper 04: Developing social care: the past, the present and the future and its related documents.