Abstract

This short guide cuts through the confusing mass of legislation to provide a concise and jargon-free explanation of current community care practice and the law.

In clear and simple language, it explains the legislation directly relevant to practitioners, including: rules about how people in need get an assessment from local authorities; the assessment of need itself; eligibility for actually getting a service (and the "fair access to care" policy); charging for services; ordinary residence; topping up of care home fees; assessing informal carers; and the rules about asylum seekers. It provides an overview and analysis of high profile issues such as direct payments, personal budgets and the policy of personalisation and National Health Service provision, including the vexed issue of NHS continuing health care. It also highlights the duties placed on local authorities and the NHS, the various tensions underlying community care, and the consequent shortcuts - both lawful and unlawful - that local authorities and the NHS feel obliged to take.

Quick Guide to Community Care Practice and the Law is an essential resource for busy practitioners at all levels as well as managers in both the statutory and voluntary sectors, policy-makers in local authorities and the NHS, advocates, lawyers and social work students.

Weaving thorough the complexities of health and social care provision - particularly funding - is a path that many community nurses and social workers will be familiar with. This book, although brief, sets out the key issues in Mandelstam's succinct, clear and robust style. By his own admission, it cannot cover everything but it does make an admirable attempt to clarify key topics such as continuing care through to asylum and immigration.
Journal of Community Nursing
Michael Mandelstam has worked independently for thirteen years providing legal training, advice and consultancy to local authorities, the NHS and voluntary organisations. Previously, he worked at the Disabled Living Foundation, a national voluntary organisation, before moving to the Social Services Inspectorate at the Department of Health. He holds postgraduate qualifications in law, information studies and the history of science and medicine. Michael is the author of Community Care Practice and the Law (4th edition), Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults and the Law, and Manual Handling in Health and Social Care: An A to Z of Law and Practice all published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers.