ASS058-3 Assessment Guidance Template

Individual report

2,000 words (100% of unit grade)

Task:

Students are expected to discuss contemporary challenges in social care provision experienced by older people living in the United Kingdom either living in their own homes or residential care homes. Discuss relevant legislation (Acts of Parliament) and policy (community care or residential care policy regulation and guidance) and identify challenges related to the chosen type of care provision and make suggestions for improvement.

In order to answer the question, you are required to:

(1) Focus on the United Kingdom/ or one of its constituent countries: England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland

(2) Choose either community care OR residential care

(3) Discuss developments in either community care or residential care legislation & policy (chronologically, since the inception of the service provision)

(4) Identify 3 challenges related to the provision of the chosen type of care (specific issues/challenges relating to the country’s ‘system’ of care provision). For example, one challenge could be being able to die at home, one is safeguarding issues at home, one is access to 24 hour care

(5) Make suggestions to overcome the challenges identified in (4) (your suggestions MUST MATCH the issues/challenges you identified).

You must underpin every statement made that you have taken from the literature with a reference
Draw upon use at least 8 academic sources (i.e. peer-reviewed journal articles).
You also need to reference your policies and legislation
No more than 5-10% should be in the form of quotes.
You must use the Harvard referencing system.
Your in-text citations must match up with what appears in your reference list. Every in-text citation should correspond to a reference on the list at the end (and vice versa)
Remember this is a REPORT, therefore you can have headings and subheadings in your work

1.0 Introduction

This is a short paragraph to explain to the reader what the purpose of the essay is:

The country of focus – the UK as a whole or England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland
Whether the focus is community care OR residential care And a brief description of your choice (add in a reference here!)
The time period that you are choosing to examine and discuss

Main body

2.0 Background

Introduce the concept of community care or residential care (as you pick) and provide a definition of this type of care in the context of the country that you have chosen (note please use literature from this country and not the UK if appropriate). At level 6 you should be choosing two or more definitions and discussing where agreement is reached or not as the case may be, and what definition you are going to take for the purposes of the essay and why. You can also discuss the differences between community and residential care, and how they differ from nursing care.
State the time period covered in your essay and set the scene historically. You might use academic texts such as Townsend (see lecture 1) and follow up studies (such as Johnson et al, also in lecture 1) to help you.

2.1 Key Acts of Parliament

It is strongly recommended that you discuss at three key Acts of Parliament (legislation) in chronological order. Students should identify the first time when the first community or residential care legislation/policy was identified.
- Tie these changes into wider academic studies, and use academic works to help critically explore and evaluate the impact of the Acts. Other sources such as Government reports, those published by charities will also support. Make sure that you cite the Acts correctly i.e. Act has a capital ‘A’ and the year of publication. Example: Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974

- Explain how the system/policy has changed particularly mentioning three key policy changes.

2.2 Key policies

- You should also discuss key policy pieces relating to the type of care provision and the country you chose. Again, discuss in chronological order and refer back to section 2.1 to ‘weave’ the policies in with the key Acts of Parliament – again use academic studies and wider literature.

2.3 Discussion

- At the end of these two paragraphs, conclude and provide an evaluation of how the system/sector currently looks like.

3.0 Challenges in delivering social care within residential or community Care (delete the one you are not focusing on)

Identify three major issues and challenges related to the long-term care provision and make suggestions for improvement based on their findings.
Make at least three suggestions to overcome the challenges identified in your essay
(your suggestions MUST MATCH the issues/challenges you identified, and you might draw upon academic work, charities, NHS etc. to provide examples. Where the examples are from another country, justify your use of this).
- Some examples of issues and challenges in relation to the provision of community care OR residential care include;
  - Is the system sustainable (financially and systematically)?
  - Are there enough people to provide care?
  - Are they paid properly? Training?
  - Is the coverage adequate?
  - Fair eligibility criteria?
  - Enough support for people needing care?
  - Enough support for informal carers (i.e. unpaid carers)?
  - Postcode lottery/regional differences/inequality?
  - Enough facilities? (especially residential care)
  - Quality of care? Elder abuse?
  - Any stigma attached to receiving publicly-funded care?
  - What else? Any political, social, cultural, religions, economic challenges