Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures, tables and boxes
- 1 Introduction
- 2 A brief history: how we got here
- 3 Understanding social care
- 4 Learning from the past
- 5 Learning from abroad
- 6 Who cares?
- 7 A 1948 moment? The politics and process of reform
- 8 A new future for social care
- Postscript
- Notes
- References
- Index
2 - A brief history: how we got here
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 June 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures, tables and boxes
- 1 Introduction
- 2 A brief history: how we got here
- 3 Understanding social care
- 4 Learning from the past
- 5 Learning from abroad
- 6 Who cares?
- 7 A 1948 moment? The politics and process of reform
- 8 A new future for social care
- Postscript
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
The social service movement of modern times is not confined to any one class, nor is it the preserve of a particular section of dull and respectable people. It has arisen out of a deep discontent with society as at present constituted, and among its prophets have been the greatest spirits of our time. It is not a movement concerned alone with the material, with housing and drains, clinics and feeding centres, gas and water, but is the expression of the desire for social justice, for freedom and beauty, and for the better apportionment of all the things that make up a good life.
Clement Attlee, The Social Worker (1920)In need of care and attention – the 1940s
The need to care for each other has been a universal human need since the start of recorded time. It has found expression down the ages in the work of monasteries, medieval almshouses and the earliest hospitals that were essentially places of refuge, care and support. The Elizabethan and Victorian Poor Laws marked the beginnings of state intervention in response to the plight of the poor, the destitute and those unable to care for themselves. The motives for these measures were often more punitive than philanthropic, but they have left their mark, as we shall see.
To understand how we have ended up with our current system, the starting point for the modern history of social care should be the foundations of the post-war welfare state, when the social security element of the Poor Law was shifted to central government (social security as it was to be called later), and the ‘welfare’ element was given to new welfare departments within local authorities. This was a decisive moment that was to influence deeply the relationship between social care and its very big and dominant sibling, the NHS. Looking back to the origins of the modern welfare state also helps us to appreciate how much, and in many ways how little, has changed since then.
In the early months of 1948, a leaflet by the Ministry of Health plopped through the letterbox of every household in the land, proclaiming the launch of the new National Health Service on 5 July:
It will provide you with all medical, dental and nursing care.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ending the Social Care CrisisA New Road to Reform, pp. 20 - 52Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2022