This book was originally conceived in 1987. It was then seen as a contribution towards improved management and policy-making in a diffuse and neglected area of NHS management. The focus of the book is the 'old' Community Health Services: those transferred to Area Health Authorities from local authorities in the 1974 reยญ organization of the NHS. These diverse services, while grouped together, had little objectively in common, occupying, as they do, a hazy middle ground between hospital and Family Practitioner Services. However, since 1974 there have been a number of major develยญ opments which have opened opportunities for change and develยญ opment in these services. These include: the resurrection of concern with 'Public Health'; the attempted closure of large mental illness and mental handicap hospitals and the development of 'Comยญ munity Care'; the introduction of General Management; and the implication for health and local authorities of the White Papers 'Caring for People', 'Promoting Better Health' and 'Working for Patients'. Traditionally, Community Health Services were seen as low status and a professional dead-end. This, in tum, has led to a rather uneven body of literature. The growth of general management has led to a demand for a more coherent, management-orientated literature. It is our hope that this book will encourage the production of more literature in this area
CONTENT
One: Policy and Management Issues -- 1 Local authority health strategies -- 2 Developing service strategies: the transition to community care -- 3 Patterns of management in community units -- 4 Information use in effective community management -- Two: Intersectoral Collaboration, Public Participation and Consumerism -- 5 Working with the voluntary sector -- 6 Working with local authorities -- 7 Satisfying the public and the consumer, or the public as consumer? -- Three: Overview and Conclusions -- 8 Whither community health services? โ harnessing the new public health and the new managerialism
