Centre for Policy on Ageing



Needs-led assessment — the challenges and the reality
Author(s)	Beth Parry-Jones, Judith Soulsby
Journal title	Health & Social Care in the Community, vol 9, no 6, November 2001
Pages	pp 414-428
Keywords	Community care ; Needs [elderly] ; Evaluation ; Longitudinal surveys ; Gwynedd.
Annotation	Following the NHS and Community Care Act 1990, needs-led assessment and case management were to be the cornerstones of high quality care; and practitioners were challenged to alter their attitudes and practice to accommodate the needs-led approach. The opinions of social and healthcare practitioners providing services to older people in North Wales were sought through semi-structured interviews in 1994-95 and 1998-99. Supports and constraints to practice were also explored. Although practitioners welcomed the needs-led philosophy, putting it into practice was difficult, if not impossible. The main constraints were a lack of resources, and the conceptual difficulty of separating "need" from "need for a particular service". Ever tightening budgets and service eligibility criteria over the period of the study indicate that a shift of focus from assessment of need to rationing has taken place. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-020109214 A
Classmark	PA: IK: 4C: 3J: 98
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.