This textbook provides a concise introduction to policy and practice issues in community care. It has been written for nurses and other health professionals in training, particularly those wishing to specialize in community care. It explains the concepts behind community care policy and demonstrates their relevance to work in healthcare settings. The authors draw together a wide range of material on the changing nature of community care, assess current research evidence, and examine the central issues relating to everyday practice. At the end of each chapter there are suggestions for further reading and follow-up work.

Author Biography

Nigel Malin is Professor of Community Care and Divisional Research Co-ordinator at the University of Derby. He is editor of Implementing Community Care, Services for People with Learning Disabilities and Reassessing Community Care. His main teaching has been social policy on health and social work programmes and he is currently undertaking research on clinical supervision and practice ethics in learning disabilities' services and leading planning of a Community Care Research Forum in Southern Derbyshire. Jill Manthorpe is Lecturer in Community Care at the University of Hull. She has wide research interests including the relationships between health and social services and private, voluntary and family networks and has been recent co-grant holder (both ESRC and ENB) conducting research under the Risk and Welfare Initiative and on Risk and the Nursing Curriculum. David Race is Lecturer in the School of Social Work, Education and Counselling at Stockport College teaching mainly on the BA Professional Studies: Learning Difficulties degree. He has studied health and social services in Hong Kong, the US, Canada and Sweden and been involved in various forms of training and evaluation, both in the UK and abroad. He is currently preparing a book on social role valorization. Stephen Wilmot is Senior Lecturer in Health Care at the University of Derby teaching mainly on health-related courses. He is currently Programme Leader for the MSc General Practice Medicine and recent author of The Ethics of Community Care (Cassell). His research interests include ethical dimensions of clinical practice, professional dilemmas and interprofessional issues in community care.