Radical approaches to the care crisis : solidarity, community and a national care service / Anne Gray.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gray, Anne, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Older people--Care--Government policy--Great Britain.

Older people.

Older people--Services for--Great Britain.

Health services administration--Government policy--Great Britain.

Health services administration.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 228 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Bristol : Policy Press, 2025.

Summary:

This book explores the critical issue of how to manage the ever-increasing demand for social care in Britain's ageing society, putting forward workable solutions for integrating paid-for and unpaid care into a single framework based on the strengths of the community.

Contents:

Front Cover

Radical Approaches to the Care Crisis: Solidarity, Community and a National Care Service

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

List of figures, tables and boxes

List of abbreviations

Acknowledgements

Preface

1 Introduction

The themes and purpose of this book

Survey evidence on paid and unpaid care (Chapter 2)

The current role of informal care and likely future challenges to expanding it (Chapter 3)

The likely cost of care reform, the challenge of adequate pay for care workers and options for reducing or restructuring charges, including universal free care (Chapter 4)

Solidarity and community development, to sustain and develop unpaid support (Chapters 5 and 6)

Reducing the need for care (Chapter 7)

A summary of main themes and recommendations (Chapter 8)

Sources and approaches used in this book

Setting the scene: the effect of shrinking care budgets

Terminology used in this book

2 Survey evidence on paid and unpaid care

Introduction

The relative scale of formal and informal care

Estimates of the number of informal carers

Trends in informal care compared to trends in need

Informal care left to fewer hands: the intensification of care and its impact on carers

Carer stress

How formal care varies with the presence of an informal carer

The measurement of need and unmet need

The providers of informal care: partners, children, other relatives and non-.kin

Conclusion

3 How can informal care be sustained?

Four trends affecting supply and demand for informal care

The growing care deficit due to population ageing

Care from partners or from children?

The trend for partners to replace care from seniors' children

The care deficit for lone childless seniors

The trend in childlessness

Rising disability among people under 65.

Trends in help from non-.relatives

Employment and pension issues which affect caring

The substitution debate: would informal care shrink in response to more formal care?

The need for new policies to support informal carers

4 Who pays? How much care could be free, what kinds and for whom?

Choices about charging: limited free care for all, or a wider range of services with some charges?

Unmet need and the cost of meeting it

Estimating the cost of care with varying assumptions about wage costs and scope of services

Alternative definitions of need and different scenarios about who should receive formal care

The need for higher pay for care workers

How different wage scenarios affect funding requirements

The future cost of adult care at adequate wage and billing rates

What would it cost to make care free?

Help for unpaid carers and its impact on the care budget

Supply-.side measures to reduce the unit costs of care

Cutting costs but not wages: homecare

Micro-.enterprise

Care cooperatives

Outcomes-.based commissioning and the Buurtzorg model

Cutting costs but not wages: care homes and the alternatives

5 Widening the caring circle: towards a caring economy

Care as a relationship rather than a set of tasks

The politics of compassion and the commons of care

What can friends and neighbours contribute to informal care?

Personal networks: loneliness and help from friends

Projects to build supportive friendships: 'Circles' and the Cares Family

6 Solidarity projects: mutual aid, timebanks, community unions and volunteers

A short history of mutual aid groups

The distinctive characteristics of mutual aid groups in the UK

The political role of mutual aid groups.

The practical legacy of COVID-.19 period mutual aid groups

Timebanks: a variant of mutual aid?

Timebanks and the state: a problematic relationship

The dual role of timebanks: more social contacts than practical support

Community unions

The NHS Volunteer Responder programme

Mutual aid projects in the future of solidarity

Some local models for development of community solidarity

7 Reducing the need for care

Policies for 'age-.friendly communities': better places, better health, less need for care

Reducing isolation and loneliness

Digital exclusion

Health advice and peer-.group messaging to reduce the need for care

Reducing poverty

Suitable housing for older age

Better quality care means less care to fund?

The role of seniors' networks: Manchester and Leeds

8 Conclusions and solutions

The future cost of care

Pathways towards greater funding and lower charging

Support for informal carers

Supply-.side measures to reduce the cost of formal care

The nature of care as a relationship

How community solidarity can help

Widening the caring circle: the importance of friendship networks

How community solidarity can contribute to a prevention and early help agenda

Reducing the demand for care services: preventive health measures, solidarity and an age-.friendly environment

Community and state together building a caring economy

Appendix A Cost calculations and revenue sources for expanding subsidised care

Appendix B Seniors' different needs for help and how they are met

Appendix C Stories of lived experience

Burçu (Bu) Keser's speech on being an informal carer

Jo's story

Mutual aid in sheltered housing schemes

James, in a sheltered housing scheme in Colchester.

Focus group at Stonebury Court, a retirement housing estate in Surrey

Focus group at Marshall Gardens, a sheltered housing scheme in North-.west London

Younger volunteers needed for help with mobility

The wheelchair people: focus group in a sheltered housing scheme in South London

Sheila, interviewed in a sheltered housing scheme in Harlow

References

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 12 Sep 2025).

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781447374107

144737410X

OCLC:

1511107219