Change is part of a humans’ existence therefore, it is unavoidable and timeless. This concept is interrelated and insensitive to current occurrences within the wider welfare institutions in the UK’s health and social care sectors in particular. At present, health and social services are yet again undergoing a painstaking restructuring that’s creating psychological and physical stresses to the entire workforce and consumers. This trajectory is building uncertain future due to continuous re-organizations, change of emphasis and redirections of care delivery to the typical public. Ironically, people aren’t sure where their future and loyalty lies as changes in the device is triggering great worries to all concerned.
On reflection, health and social services went via a huge conscientious change in 1990s (The NHS and Community Care Act), that reconfigured the welfare systems from what many practitioners and managers thought would have been a modern establishment. However, the New Labour government in 1997 to 2010 changed the outlook and redesigned it to new approaches such as for example personalization of services (Direct payments, Cash for Care and Personal Budgets) that transformed services delivery within the sectors. Change could make or break staff commitment, maximization of services, profitability or industrial disputes involving the management and employees, this owing to mishaps within industrial relations’ policies and protocols.
Changing organizational cultures in addition to philosophy and employee’s terms of reference requires effective governance and scrutiny to be able to ensure health and social care reforms benefit the advantages of all. The main element to making the reforms are planned would be to safeguard effective analysis of brand new policy directives and structures. It’s now questionable whether the “autism support New Means of Working” is effective at changing the fabrics and structures of the welfare services in the UK. The main themes of the overhauls are to reduce costs/budgets, staffing and improving quality and standards of services.
Decision making in some departments or services are proving to be irrational because costs are escalating, standards declining and waiting lists for assessment increasing across many social services departments. Most quality newspapers affirm that the coalition may did everything they could to start implementing health and social care modifications before being properly examined. But, without careful considerations and good governance the plans will be an unmitigated disaster. That notwithstanding, the speed of restructuring and reallocation of services have produced an unsettling atmosphere for some health/social care workers and managers. The government’ itinerary to carry on with reforms and their failure to permit time for study or even to win the professional’s backing for these radical plans have already been challenging to the wider community of experts and people at large.
Taking into consideration the clamor amongst practitioners and clinicians, the question is, would the governments’ defiant be regarded as democratic or dictetorism? On the other hand, it is believed that democracy means “government for the folks and by the people” ;.If that’s the case, the coalition could have itself to be blamed for just about any criticisms regarding their actions. The dismantling of the (PCT) Primary Care Trusts throughout the country next two or three years might be termed as political vandalism of tax payer’s money and good governance.
Similarly, most strategic health and local government authorities have expressed concerns regarding cutbacks on their budget, that could have huge ramifications to services for seniors and other vulnerable groups such as for example people with disabilities and mental health. This has been widely highlighted with a large proportion of the professional bodies such as the Nursing and Midwifery Council, British Medical Association and BBC 2 News Night in particular. The criticisms of the federal government is now without seasoning because health and social care organizations must double their expected cuts to be able to remain afloat.
The growth of seniors and their increasing demand for care is now unprecedented and becoming a threat to the welfare service and public services. This really is despite extraordinary support from informal caregivers that are believed to own saved the federal government over eleven (£11bn) billion pounds a year. That notwithstanding, change is needed to reduce duplications within the device therefore, what is desirable now is a longterm strategic alliance between all stakeholders (the national and local governments, health and social care and members of the family etc.). This could guarantee and strengthen collaborative services and minimization of costs and wastage within the sectors involved. Yet, judging from the existing state of the economy both macro and micro variable, it is sure change is foreseeable to be able to meet with the challenges presented by the turmoil in the financial market and escalation of cost to maintain health and social care.
However, the issue in planning, management and administration of the ageing universal service in the UK has been made a whole lot harder as a result of disproportionately deep cuts to local authorities. The Big Society agenda indicated that the federal government should devolve responsibilities to the community, individuals, families and the next sector. By all assumptions, this will make certain that service users’ care would continue while restructuring is in progress. In hindsight, the important thing to making the reforms work would be to safeguard effective control and scrutiny of all the workflow patterns and services delivery. Practically, it’s proved overwhelming for the organizations and management as information on the shake-up is superficial when it comes to economics and socio-politics consistent with social policy in the UK.
Presently, the federal government seems unconcerned and flustered regarding the “House of Common’s” health select committee’s proposal that councillors should really be appointed to own seats on the boards of GPs consortia. On reflection, the quality and capacity of the representatives of some voluntary bodies such as for example: patients/service user’s liaison body and the neighborhood involvement network agencies might be inconsistent and lacking as a result of clinical and financial expertise. Thus, as a scrutiny committee, it’d in practice be problematic to work closely with Health Watch, in addition to with medical and wellbeing boards.