Accountability and Effectiveness in Community Care

Abstract

Community care raises a number of issues about accountability. In this chapter, we shall look at the ways in which post-Griffiths policy tries to deal with these accountability issues, and the consequences for practice. For practitioners, the policy creates multiple and possibly conflicting responsibilities. It seeks to enforce financial limitations and government management philosophies in a context where responsibility to service users’ and carers’ choice is also being promoted. Workers will feel a responsibility to both sides, and their demands are often in tension. Care management places a responsibility to assess needs and treat these as a priority, while imposing financial limitations on meeting those assessed needs. Different services and professions are also making their own assessments and conflicts between those assessments will have to be worked out.