Peter Scourfield
Biographic Data
| ID | 4239184 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter Scourfield |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter |
| FAMILY NAME | Scourfield |
| SIGNATURE | SCOURFIELD P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Anglia Ruskin University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 70 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
The hidden, human costs of the UK’s failing ‘market’ for home care
Prompted by the news of yet another private home care provider going out of business and handing back their care contracts to the local council, this piece discusses key reasons why the quasi-market in adult social care in the UK continues to fail. The commentary highlights the negative impact of such market failures for service users, their families and care staff, and suggests the steps that need to be taken to improve the situation
Too many cooks or cannot follow the recipe? A critical consideration of conceptualising the professional leadership of social work in England as a collective endeavour
In 2018, the official requirement for social workers in England to demonstrate ‘professional leadership’ was refreshed and extended to now include needing to be part of the ‘collective leadership’ of the profession. This development raises several issues, not the least of which is whether there is a clearly identifiable ‘collective leadership’ in English social work to be a part of. The article discusses how professional leadership has come to be…
Squaring the Circle
In 2012 the first ever operating franchise was awarded to a private provider to run an NHS district general hospital – Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire, UK. Less than three years into what was supposed to be a ten-year deal, the franchisee, Circle, announced its withdrawal from the contract, raising concerns about the process of risk assessing and monitoring the franchise arrangements. This commentary begins by telling the story of the decision t…
Social Work and Social Policy under Austerity
Published as part of Palgrave's ‘Reshaping Social Work’ series, according to the preface, the authors' main concern is to: .... interrogate the causes of the global economic crisis of the post-2008 p
Defenders against Threats or Enablers of Opportunities
This paper emerges from a case study of the system of statutory reviews in older people’s care homes in the UK. Informed by a review of selected literature on gaining access, this paper provides a critical account of the process of negotiating access with gatekeepers (chiefly, care home managers). The negotiations were time-consuming and largely fruitless in terms of actually gaining access to care home residents. Nevertheless, much was learned a…
Reflections on the utilisation of ‘universalist’ discourse in contemporary English policy on adult social care
References to ‘universal services’ in social policy are historically associated with social-democratic welfare regimes. However, neoliberal-influenced policy initiatives aimed at ‘transforming’ adult social care in England talk a lot about local authorities enabling access to ‘universal services’. This commentary reflects critically on the effects of policy makers and service providers referencing universalism in ways that are often confused and …
Implementing Co-Production in Adult Social Care
The idea of ‘co-production’ has been promoted by both New Labour and Coalition governments as a means to help ‘transform’ adult social care. With its emphasis on active citizenship, community support networks, voluntary effort and power sharing, the idea might have been expected to have been received more enthusiastically by those expected to put it into practice and benefit from it. However, unlike other ‘big ideas’ intended to ‘transform’ adult…
Even Further beyond Street-Level Bureaucracy
Journal Article Even Further beyond Street-Level Bureaucracy: The Dispersal of Discretion Exercised in Decisions Made in Older People's Care Home Reviews Get access Peter Scourfield Peter Scourfield * *Correspondence to Mr Peter Scourfield, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge, CB1 1PT, UK. E-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Social Work, V…
Caretelization revisited and the lessons of Southern Cross
‘Caretelization’ is a term coined to describe the process, in a substantially privatized care home sector, whereby large corporate providers have gained greater market share through the process of mergers, acquisitions and takeovers. It has been argued that this process has reduced choice and weakened accountability for older people as consumers and local authorities as commissioners. The care regulator has also had difficulty in keeping up with …
Reflections on the serious case review of a female adult (JK)
This paper originates from accessing the Cornwall Council website (Cornwall Council, 2010) in order to download the report of the serious case review into the murder of Steven Hoskin for teaching purposes on a Post‐Qualifying Social Work programme. However, there were another two serious case review reports posted, which were also relevant to the course. This reflective piece follows from a reading of the executive summary of one of them ‐ the Se…
Ethical Considerations when Involving Older People in Public Service Participation Processes
In the United Kingdom, as in many other countries, New Labour governments have heavily promoted different forms of ‘service-user involvement’ in decision making about public services. The current orthodoxy would appear to be that involvement activities carry with them de facto benefits that are both affirmative and empowering. However, relatively little research has been carried out into considering the real impact (emotional or otherwise) of inv…
I Haven’t Forgotten About You’ ‐ Critical Lessons Learned in Negotiating Access into the Field of Care Management
Based on a case study, this paper discusses the issues raised and problems faced when trying to negotiate access to the system of statutory reviews for older people residing in care homes in England. Efforts to recruit participants proved to be more difficult than anticipated. However, the prolonged period of field negotiation yielded its own set of data with which to better understand the adult social care system in England. The paper provides a…
Going for Brokerage
It is argued that for the agenda to ‘personalize’ social care in the UK to be successful, adequate systems of support brokerage need to be in place. Where brokerage is situated organizationally and ideologically is not inconsequential, both in terms of the accountability, profile and quality of the ‘brokers’ and the extent to which service users can feel properly in control of their own care or support. Many involved in support brokerage argue th…
A Critical Reflection on the Involvement of 'Experts by Experience' in Inspections
Recent research conducted in the UK for the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) suggested that there was no evidence to indicate that the involvement of service users and lay assessors in service inspections improved the quality of inspections. However, recently, CSCI has initiated a project to involve ‘experts by experience’ in their service inspections. Here, the term ‘expert by experience’ has been adopted to describe users of social …
Are there reasons to be worried about the 'caretelization' of residential care
Successive governments have encouraged both the marketization and the privatization of the residential and nursing care sector. This paper describes how the large corporate providers continue to increase their share of the market through a continual process of mergers, takeovers and acquisitions. Market analysis suggests that this trend is set to continue. The name given to this phenomenon in this paper is `caretelization'. The process of caretel…
What matters is what works’? How discourses of modernization have both silenced and limited debate on domiciliary care for older people
Policy statements about the care of vulnerable older people repeatedly emphasize the desirability of keeping people at home. An enduring problem in implementing this strategy is the ongoing crisis within the quasi-market in domiciliary care. The government announced in 2004 that it wanted a new vision for adult social care. In such circumstances, it could be argued that, in order to achieve home care services that are stable, flexible and better …
Helping Older People in Residential Care Remain Full Citizens
Eliminating the Visible
Understanding Why Carers' Assessments Do Not Always Take Place
Recent pronouncements from both government and carers' organisations have expressed disappointment at the low numbers of carers' assessments being undertaken by social care practitioners. The reasons offered for this are varied. They commonly tend to emphasise issues of bureaucratic incompetence, for example the failure by Social Services Departments to provide information to carers about their rights, or else highlighting practitioner attitudes …
Implementing the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act
Direct payments are becoming an important means by which any disabled person can arrange their care in ways that give them more choice and control over how they are supported. A key part of this new freedom is the ability to employ personal assistants (PAs) on terms laid down by the direct payments user. While endorsing the basic principles underpinning direct payments, this article raises questions over whether the employment market in suitably …
Questions Raised for Local Authorities when Old People are Evicted from their Care Homes
Successive government policies have created a situation where most residential and nursing care is provided by the independent sector. It is in the nature of a marketized and privatized care system that homes will periodically close or change ownership. The physical and mental well-being of elderly residents experiencing eviction and relocation can be seriously damaged by the experience. No policy and practice guidelines have been issued from cen…
Helping Older People in Residential Care Remain Full Citizens
Are there reasons to be worried about the 'caretelization' of residential care
Successive governments have encouraged both the marketization and the privatization of the residential and nursing care sector. This paper describes how the large corporate providers continue to increase their share of the market through a continual process of mergers, takeovers and acquisitions. Market analysis suggests that this trend is set to continue. The name given to this phenomenon in this paper is `caretelization'. The process of caretel…
Caretelization revisited and the lessons of Southern Cross
‘Caretelization’ is a term coined to describe the process, in a substantially privatized care home sector, whereby large corporate providers have gained greater market share through the process of mergers, acquisitions and takeovers. It has been argued that this process has reduced choice and weakened accountability for older people as consumers and local authorities as commissioners. The care regulator has also had difficulty in keeping up with …
Going for Brokerage
It is argued that for the agenda to ‘personalize’ social care in the UK to be successful, adequate systems of support brokerage need to be in place. Where brokerage is situated organizationally and ideologically is not inconsequential, both in terms of the accountability, profile and quality of the ‘brokers’ and the extent to which service users can feel properly in control of their own care or support. Many involved in support brokerage argue th…
A Critical Reflection on the Involvement of 'Experts by Experience' in Inspections
Recent research conducted in the UK for the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) suggested that there was no evidence to indicate that the involvement of service users and lay assessors in service inspections improved the quality of inspections. However, recently, CSCI has initiated a project to involve ‘experts by experience’ in their service inspections. Here, the term ‘expert by experience’ has been adopted to describe users of social …
Implementing the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act
Direct payments are becoming an important means by which any disabled person can arrange their care in ways that give them more choice and control over how they are supported. A key part of this new freedom is the ability to employ personal assistants (PAs) on terms laid down by the direct payments user. While endorsing the basic principles underpinning direct payments, this article raises questions over whether the employment market in suitably …
Too many cooks or cannot follow the recipe? A critical consideration of conceptualising the professional leadership of social work in England as a collective endeavour
In 2018, the official requirement for social workers in England to demonstrate ‘professional leadership’ was refreshed and extended to now include needing to be part of the ‘collective leadership’ of the profession. This development raises several issues, not the least of which is whether there is a clearly identifiable ‘collective leadership’ in English social work to be a part of. The article discusses how professional leadership has come to be…
What matters is what works’? How discourses of modernization have both silenced and limited debate on domiciliary care for older people
Policy statements about the care of vulnerable older people repeatedly emphasize the desirability of keeping people at home. An enduring problem in implementing this strategy is the ongoing crisis within the quasi-market in domiciliary care. The government announced in 2004 that it wanted a new vision for adult social care. In such circumstances, it could be argued that, in order to achieve home care services that are stable, flexible and better …
Defenders against Threats or Enablers of Opportunities
This paper emerges from a case study of the system of statutory reviews in older people’s care homes in the UK. Informed by a review of selected literature on gaining access, this paper provides a critical account of the process of negotiating access with gatekeepers (chiefly, care home managers). The negotiations were time-consuming and largely fruitless in terms of actually gaining access to care home residents. Nevertheless, much was learned a…
Eliminating the Visible
Questions Raised for Local Authorities when Old People are Evicted from their Care Homes
Successive government policies have created a situation where most residential and nursing care is provided by the independent sector. It is in the nature of a marketized and privatized care system that homes will periodically close or change ownership. The physical and mental well-being of elderly residents experiencing eviction and relocation can be seriously damaged by the experience. No policy and practice guidelines have been issued from cen…
The hidden, human costs of the UK’s failing ‘market’ for home care
Prompted by the news of yet another private home care provider going out of business and handing back their care contracts to the local council, this piece discusses key reasons why the quasi-market in adult social care in the UK continues to fail. The commentary highlights the negative impact of such market failures for service users, their families and care staff, and suggests the steps that need to be taken to improve the situation
Implementing Co-Production in Adult Social Care
The idea of ‘co-production’ has been promoted by both New Labour and Coalition governments as a means to help ‘transform’ adult social care. With its emphasis on active citizenship, community support networks, voluntary effort and power sharing, the idea might have been expected to have been received more enthusiastically by those expected to put it into practice and benefit from it. However, unlike other ‘big ideas’ intended to ‘transform’ adult…
Understanding Why Carers' Assessments Do Not Always Take Place
Recent pronouncements from both government and carers' organisations have expressed disappointment at the low numbers of carers' assessments being undertaken by social care practitioners. The reasons offered for this are varied. They commonly tend to emphasise issues of bureaucratic incompetence, for example the failure by Social Services Departments to provide information to carers about their rights, or else highlighting practitioner attitudes …
Questions Raised for Local Authorities when Old People are Evicted from their Care Homes
Successive government policies have created a situation where most residential and nursing care is provided by the independent sector. It is in the nature of a marketized and privatized care system that homes will periodically close or change ownership. The physical and mental well-being of elderly residents experiencing eviction and relocation can be seriously damaged by the experience. No policy and practice guidelines have been issued from cen…
Eliminating the Visible
Understanding Why Carers' Assessments Do Not Always Take Place
Recent pronouncements from both government and carers' organisations have expressed disappointment at the low numbers of carers' assessments being undertaken by social care practitioners. The reasons offered for this are varied. They commonly tend to emphasise issues of bureaucratic incompetence, for example the failure by Social Services Departments to provide information to carers about their rights, or else highlighting practitioner attitudes …
Implementing the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act
Direct payments are becoming an important means by which any disabled person can arrange their care in ways that give them more choice and control over how they are supported. A key part of this new freedom is the ability to employ personal assistants (PAs) on terms laid down by the direct payments user. While endorsing the basic principles underpinning direct payments, this article raises questions over whether the employment market in suitably …
What matters is what works’? How discourses of modernization have both silenced and limited debate on domiciliary care for older people
Policy statements about the care of vulnerable older people repeatedly emphasize the desirability of keeping people at home. An enduring problem in implementing this strategy is the ongoing crisis within the quasi-market in domiciliary care. The government announced in 2004 that it wanted a new vision for adult social care. In such circumstances, it could be argued that, in order to achieve home care services that are stable, flexible and better …
Helping Older People in Residential Care Remain Full Citizens
Are there reasons to be worried about the 'caretelization' of residential care
Successive governments have encouraged both the marketization and the privatization of the residential and nursing care sector. This paper describes how the large corporate providers continue to increase their share of the market through a continual process of mergers, takeovers and acquisitions. Market analysis suggests that this trend is set to continue. The name given to this phenomenon in this paper is `caretelization'. The process of caretel…
Reflections on the serious case review of a female adult (JK)
This paper originates from accessing the Cornwall Council website (Cornwall Council, 2010) in order to download the report of the serious case review into the murder of Steven Hoskin for teaching purposes on a Post‐Qualifying Social Work programme. However, there were another two serious case review reports posted, which were also relevant to the course. This reflective piece follows from a reading of the executive summary of one of them ‐ the Se…
Ethical Considerations when Involving Older People in Public Service Participation Processes
In the United Kingdom, as in many other countries, New Labour governments have heavily promoted different forms of ‘service-user involvement’ in decision making about public services. The current orthodoxy would appear to be that involvement activities carry with them de facto benefits that are both affirmative and empowering. However, relatively little research has been carried out into considering the real impact (emotional or otherwise) of inv…
I Haven’t Forgotten About You’ ‐ Critical Lessons Learned in Negotiating Access into the Field of Care Management
Based on a case study, this paper discusses the issues raised and problems faced when trying to negotiate access to the system of statutory reviews for older people residing in care homes in England. Efforts to recruit participants proved to be more difficult than anticipated. However, the prolonged period of field negotiation yielded its own set of data with which to better understand the adult social care system in England. The paper provides a…
Going for Brokerage
It is argued that for the agenda to ‘personalize’ social care in the UK to be successful, adequate systems of support brokerage need to be in place. Where brokerage is situated organizationally and ideologically is not inconsequential, both in terms of the accountability, profile and quality of the ‘brokers’ and the extent to which service users can feel properly in control of their own care or support. Many involved in support brokerage argue th…
A Critical Reflection on the Involvement of 'Experts by Experience' in Inspections
Recent research conducted in the UK for the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) suggested that there was no evidence to indicate that the involvement of service users and lay assessors in service inspections improved the quality of inspections. However, recently, CSCI has initiated a project to involve ‘experts by experience’ in their service inspections. Here, the term ‘expert by experience’ has been adopted to describe users of social …
Caretelization revisited and the lessons of Southern Cross
‘Caretelization’ is a term coined to describe the process, in a substantially privatized care home sector, whereby large corporate providers have gained greater market share through the process of mergers, acquisitions and takeovers. It has been argued that this process has reduced choice and weakened accountability for older people as consumers and local authorities as commissioners. The care regulator has also had difficulty in keeping up with …
Even Further beyond Street-Level Bureaucracy
Journal Article Even Further beyond Street-Level Bureaucracy: The Dispersal of Discretion Exercised in Decisions Made in Older People's Care Home Reviews Get access Peter Scourfield Peter Scourfield * *Correspondence to Mr Peter Scourfield, Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge, CB1 1PT, UK. E-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Social Work, V…
Reflections on the utilisation of ‘universalist’ discourse in contemporary English policy on adult social care
References to ‘universal services’ in social policy are historically associated with social-democratic welfare regimes. However, neoliberal-influenced policy initiatives aimed at ‘transforming’ adult social care in England talk a lot about local authorities enabling access to ‘universal services’. This commentary reflects critically on the effects of policy makers and service providers referencing universalism in ways that are often confused and …
Implementing Co-Production in Adult Social Care
The idea of ‘co-production’ has been promoted by both New Labour and Coalition governments as a means to help ‘transform’ adult social care. With its emphasis on active citizenship, community support networks, voluntary effort and power sharing, the idea might have been expected to have been received more enthusiastically by those expected to put it into practice and benefit from it. However, unlike other ‘big ideas’ intended to ‘transform’ adult…
Social Work and Social Policy under Austerity
Published as part of Palgrave's ‘Reshaping Social Work’ series, according to the preface, the authors' main concern is to: .... interrogate the causes of the global economic crisis of the post-2008 p
Defenders against Threats or Enablers of Opportunities
This paper emerges from a case study of the system of statutory reviews in older people’s care homes in the UK. Informed by a review of selected literature on gaining access, this paper provides a critical account of the process of negotiating access with gatekeepers (chiefly, care home managers). The negotiations were time-consuming and largely fruitless in terms of actually gaining access to care home residents. Nevertheless, much was learned a…
Squaring the Circle
In 2012 the first ever operating franchise was awarded to a private provider to run an NHS district general hospital – Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire, UK. Less than three years into what was supposed to be a ten-year deal, the franchisee, Circle, announced its withdrawal from the contract, raising concerns about the process of risk assessing and monitoring the franchise arrangements. This commentary begins by telling the story of the decision t…
Too many cooks or cannot follow the recipe? A critical consideration of conceptualising the professional leadership of social work in England as a collective endeavour
In 2018, the official requirement for social workers in England to demonstrate ‘professional leadership’ was refreshed and extended to now include needing to be part of the ‘collective leadership’ of the profession. This development raises several issues, not the least of which is whether there is a clearly identifiable ‘collective leadership’ in English social work to be a part of. The article discusses how professional leadership has come to be…
The hidden, human costs of the UK’s failing ‘market’ for home care
Prompted by the news of yet another private home care provider going out of business and handing back their care contracts to the local council, this piece discusses key reasons why the quasi-market in adult social care in the UK continues to fail. The commentary highlights the negative impact of such market failures for service users, their families and care staff, and suggests the steps that need to be taken to improve the situation
Political science (20 works) · Healthcare innovation and challenges (16 works) · Public relations (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Business (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Economics (9 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (9 works) · Medicine (8 works)