The Future of Adult Social Care: Lessons from Previous Reforms

In 2005, the adult social care Green Paper, Independence, Well-being and Choice, set out a ‘new vision’ for the future of social care in England. Throughout the document, there was a strong emphasis on greater choice and control for service users, a more strategic, preventative approach, working with other services and promoting independence, well-being and inclusion. As the formal consultation process closes (in July 2005), this paper reviews three previous reforms – the Seebohm Report (1968), the Barclay Report (1982) and the community care reforms (1990-1993) – all of which set out very similar ideas and demonstrate considerable continuity in thinking over time. Given that the Green Paper feels that a ‘new vision’ is needed for adult social care, this paper questions the extent to which any of these proposals are indeed ‘new’ and questions how these changes are expected to work when previous reforms are perceived not to have delivered desired outcomes.