Health and Social Care Essay

Introduction Social policy refers to the issue of addressing the needs of the society by the state. It takes care of the welfare aspects of the people that are based on some strategies, ideologies, regulation and undertakings. This phenomenon has reached a global scale nowadays. Social policy has now a wider span and has expanded its horizon to enhance the welfare of the general people. Marshall (1950) devised the idea of social citizenship that paved the way to the welfare provisions. These rights were focused on the economic independence and a minimum standard of life for the citizen. Health is now considered something beyond the physical aspect. It has mental, psychological, social implications. Health and welfare are the result of some sophisticated relations of socio-economic issues and the sufficiency of amenities provided (Atkinson et al., 2001). The existing social and health care system was actually established in 1948 the formation of which started before the Second World War. It got a new dimension in the later part of the century where the community took the roles of the institutes and the control shifted to the private sectors. Though it has some loopholes during the course, it has gone through several significant changes. This study will discuss the important landmarks in the history of UK social policy and provisions along with a critical evaluation and the recent achievements in this regard. It will also focus on the factors behind the formation of the policies and their impact on the service users. Task 1 – historical and CONTEMPORARY LANDMARKS in social welfare provision 1.1 historical and CONTEMPORARY LANDMARKS in social policy Prior to and during the Second World War The Poor law was the sole social care facility that was provided prior to the Second World War which basically focused on the senior citizen and the incapacitated. It made it mandatory for each community to give benefit in the form of less charge for the deprived class. This law was later renamed into Public Assistance which was the result of Local Government Act, 1929. Subsequently, the facilities were open for everyone irrespective of disability and were applicable for people who did not have the money to pay for health care. (Pat Thane, 2009) The Disabled Person’s Employment Act, 1944 made it mandatory for the companies to give jobs to people included in Disabled Persons Register which should be minimum three percent of their employment. (Barnes, 1991) The National Association for Mental Health was later established in 1946 which had a movement for improved facility for the mentally disabled patients. National Health Service and the National Assistance Board The Poor law was terminated with the introduction of the National Assistance (NA) Act in 1946 which came into practice two years later. National Assistance Board (NAB) came into existence with the advent of this particular act. National Health Service took the hospitals under them which also came into being in the same year as NAB. NAB was later substituted by the Supplementary Benefits which merged with the Department of Health and Social Security in the year 1968. (Burt et al., 2003) After the Second World War The Mental Health Act came into being in 1959 that targeted to give the mentally disabled people a space in the society. It was the contribution of The National Assistance Act 1948, amended in 1962 that gave incentive to the native authorities to facilitate the senior citizen and people with disability with food, pastime facilities and to chalk out a decade long plan to enable them to stay in their respective residents for a period according to their will. (Pat Thane, 2009) In1968, Health Services and Public Health Act took the services to the senior citizens the and the people with disability to another level by offering extensive services like washing,  stewards, recreation and help in their home. (Bauld et al., 2005) In order to facilitate a social service division in every community, the Local Authority Social Services Act came into being in 1970. This was aimed at establishing a system where there is a collaborative and wide ranging arrangement for the entire social care system that will address the issues of people and give assistance to them who are in need of them. This division was given the duty of domestic aid, housing, food and entertainment facilities. The native authorities were made bound to make a catalogue of the incapacitated people and the services were to be exposed to the common mass. Invalidity Benefit came into existence in 1971which was later modified three years later which had the provision for Invalid Care Allowance In order to provide assistance to the people who wants to take the service of the local provider or a provider of their own choice of healthcare instead of the hospitals, District Health Authorities were given the authority in 1983 to give more finance to those people. In order to take care of the issue of make advancements in the service of the senior citizens and the people with disability, a series of papers addressed these issues to facilitate an improved service to the public. (Pat Thane, 2009) In an attempt to give more effort to the service to the people with disability, Disabled Persons Representation Act, 1986 was introduced so that they are taken into consideration more than before during the policy formulation. It gave the local bodies the duty to evaluate the requirement of the people with disability in terms of the social service and take care of these needs and let them know about the offers and facilities the local bodies are going to provide. (Daunt, 1992) In 1996, the Community Care Act was implemented to facilitate the people in need of social service with the und so that they can pay for the services. There are several another acts that were introduced to enhance the social care to the UK people; they are the following: Carers (Recognition and Services) Act, 1995 Mental Health (Patients in the Community) Act, 1995 Disability Discrimination Act, 1995 Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000 Special Educational Needs and Disability Act, 200 Private Hire Vehicle Act, 2002 Disability Discrimination Act (amended) 2005 Disability Equality Duty (DED), 2006 Welfare Reform Act 2007 1.2 factors influencing the development of policy & legislations The provisions regarding healthcare and welfare are mainly designed to provide the people with the economic assurance in case of any illness, disease, aging or lack of financial crisis due to the lack of a job. There are several types of allowance which is provided when a person is ill or out of job which are backed up by the insurance arrangements of the state. In the period after Second World War the state was more e focused on giving jobs to everyone. It was supported by the free education system and academic allowances. The prime attention of that period was basically the fund to the domestic arena, healthcare all around the country and obviously jobs to everyone. The employers and the government word collaboratively in this regard. task 2 – origins of social policies 2.1 PROCESS in key Health and Social Policy legalization The act is often preceded by a bill. The health related bills are presented in front of the parliament. Health and social policies are basically the activities and steps taken by the state to achieve a certain result in the national health scenario. The entire arrangement and structure of the health sector is deeply influenced by the act and legislation. These procure of formulating the policies may vary in nature. The place for the policy formulation and structure along with the attributes of the strategy has implication in the development of these acts. The whole procedure of policy formulation and implementation needs to be apprehended properly so that it  become convenient to make use of the resources and bring significant modifications in the healthcare provisions. These processes have number of stages. It starts with the design of the policy. In tis frost stage, lots of insights and information regarding the need of the service receivers are received. It takes into consideration the intention and the expected results are determined and according to them the appropriate steps are taken to make sure the required inputs are arranged. Secondly, the designed policy is practically applied by speeding the policy. It takes active measures to execute the policy. The final stage includes assessment and adjustment where the policies are scrutinized and modified according to the need of the situation. 2.2 INFLUENTIAL factors behind a parliamentary act Health and social welfare related issues are fundamentally influence by the people themselves. But the policy and parliamentary act are also affected by the assessment and the understanding and decision of the people concerned with the policy formation. There is also the consideration of the limitation of resources. In addition, the thinking process and the principals have a role to play. These policy makers have their own set of view and philosophies that are influenced by their allegiance to their respective parties (Ungerson, 1997). There are various modes of accomplishing the policies which can be customary or contemporary. There is also pressure from the activists and communities. Unexpected situations and likelihoods of events also play a role in the policy making process in the health care and social policy which may result in a very unscrupulous decisions and polices. (Spanswick, 2003) 2.3 the impact of the Act on service users The health and social care acts have positive effect throughout the UK history. These acts have helped to give people access to their fundamental right of health care, specially the older generation and the disabled people. (Foster et al., 2001) It has given the UK healthcare and welfare a solid structure. Health acre and social care had been two isolated entities, courtesy of the acts. But tis disintegration created a problem of lack of coordination. This disintegration was done in terms of the strategies and control of the bodies but they have been integrated to better serve the people. 2.4 POLITICAL leaders’ contriburion on policies Political leaders have vital contribution in helping the country recover from the adversities and downturn in the economy that resulted from the havoc of the Second World War. They help made the legislations to bring major changes in the social policies that had a foundation that predates the war. These politicians help pass the Health Act 2009 that aimed to take the National health Service to an advanced level to provide better facilities and service to the common mass.. In 2008 they passed Health and Social Care Act that had a vital contribution in revolutionizing and incorporating health and social care. The 2006 Health Act came up with the regulation that prevented public smoking and set the age restriction for smokers that was applicable to the seller of tobacco products. It also took care of the management of the medication and observation of transactions with pharmaceutical goods. (Hochschild, 1995) 2.5 improving the CARE WITH the on-going policy changes The policies that are concerned with the people’s welfare are always vulnerable to adjustments and amendments. Any vital change requires a lot deliberation and it has the risk of producing debate. The Medicare Program, introduced in 1965, has seen much modification since its inception which has helped the public to have access to better services. Further elective packages have been introduced by the authority to add to the convenience of people. (Alber, 1995) Task 3 – impact of social policies on users of health and social care services 3.1: contemporary policy developments and implementation The healthcare authorities and the social care bodies make sure everyone is treated with equality regarding the services. The strategy and regulation is designed in such a way that ensures service receivers get the service  maintaining their freedom and self-esteem. The state does its best to offer the widest range of services. They disseminate information to the public about the heath related issues and they also inform about the nourishing ingredients of a meal. Through the various programs, people are encouraged to maintain a healthy lifestyle and children are imparted education. About the health related issues. There are many joint venture sin the health and social care sector they provide employment along with the measures to improve the social care sector and take care of issues like health discriminations, infant health and adolescence health, health of senior citizens and so on. (Mason and Smith, 2005) 3.2 Measuring the impact of policy initiatives on service users There are lots of evaluation methods that are being followed by the USA government to ensure the effectiveness and the efficiency of providing services to the service users. Evidence based policy making is one of the major force for the best quality policy appraisal in the U.K. This policy making systems require policy maker and implement authority of all of these policy to utilize and use the information from different source including evaluation of the past rules and policy, statistics data, academic report and researches, economics rules and theories, national statistics, consultation with expert or agents etc. even the public expenditure, expending and the taxation also take part in this process. The UK Government has already undertaken, and also they are presently undertaking some random proscribed trials of policy steps. 3.3 the impact of a specific policy At 1999, The NSF or The National Service Framework for the mental health published. It is it is the central element for the working age adults regarding the policy of government. Beside this, this is plan or program for ten years improvement of the metal health care in UK. This NSF also described how this policy, system and the improvement will happen and the evidence relating this also given in NSF (CSIP/NIMHE, 2007). Though NSF is focusing on the decreasing of the smoke rate among people but it is not a  comprehensive or massive activity of improving health care like general health acre. Eight different pilot studies on the subject of improvement of the physical health care have been studied by the public health committee of the English strategy. (Beecham, 2005) 3.4 policies in improving the quality of life Policies can play a virtual role in the improvement of the service user’s quality of the life. Participating interest group like patient organization is very effective in this regard. The focus was later concentrated in the cut down of taxes, the reduction of interference by the government and the reduction in the government expenditure in 1975. But it had to take some portion out of the welfare budget. Currently, the state is more focused on providing people with employment rather than providing them with abundant allowances and benefits. There have been many regulation and law which are introduced to address the issues of labor, healthcare and social care nowadays. (Gulliford and Morgan, 2003) Task 4 – Recent developments in health and social care policy 4.1 recent development in health and social care policy It deals with many different things like voluntary sectors in welfare, the role or the part of religion etc. Also it deals with free worldwide secondary education and many more. Indigence is one of the primary causes of sickness. The poor and broken law authority started to evaluate hospitals for the sick people. Health and social care policy deals with the rules and the policies, system regarding people welfare state. Most of the average report founded on three assumptions which is health services, family allowance and full employment. Beside all of these things current period achievement is the pensions, insurance, tax credits, supplement to the family income etc. All of these this is the implement of current era of time. It also deals with the health and social care initiatives, social and labor inclusions, important legislation initiative, and rights etc. The announcement done by the Peter Lilley will help get the harmony to the benefit system. These mainly decrease the dependenc y of the benefit by helping the person or people in their work. (Judge, and Bauld, 2006) 4.2 the  differences in formation and adaption At this 29th century the social and the health care system policies initiative reached the rural and far areas of the United Kingdom. The main goal of this initiative of the health and social care is to provide the health and social care services to the society for the wellbeing of the society without considering the financial condition of the people. The main goal of this initiative is to provide state edification, pension and the universal health care to the citizen of the country. Similar to Japan the heath care of USA is being dominated and maintained and controlled by the different kind of insurance scheme=where state do not play any part. Social and health care is a contract between the individual citizen and the government in Scotland. But it’s straight forward in English policy where government ensures the commitment to give better health and social service rather than improving the policy itself. So it is more effective for the citizen of the country. This is a genera l contract between the service user or the citizen and the government service providers. Conclsuion The main focus of the healthcare and social care has been the equality of access recently. All the acts and polices are aimed at proving people with the most fundamental services and making sure that no one gets deprived (Exworthy et al.,2003). 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