PARTNERSHIP WORKING

Partnership employed in wellbeing and Social Care

Partnership Working in Health and Social Care

Introduction

Partnership employed in the UK : Community wellbeing Partnerships

Partnership working in the UK is not new and for many years significant use of partnerships ahs been made in the UK. We had, for example, urban and community development partnerships in the 1970s and regeneration partnerships in the 1980s. What is new, however, is the extent to which the current government, which was elected in 1997, has put partnership work at the very heart of service delivery. In detail it came to power:

"announcing its intention of moving from a contract culture to a partnership culture." (Zang & Fan, 2007, 3-23)

It also established a "duty of joint venture" for public service employees and organisations.

Ideologically this commitment to partnership can be linked to commitments to the so called "third way." Partnership working could be considered distinctive from the centralised bureaucratic hierarchy of Old Labour and the market orientation of the Conservatives. Partnership working could be regarded as based on trust, whereas hierarchies depend on command and markets on the price mechanism.

The publications comprises considerable discussion of the significance and definition of partnerships. This is not such an abstract issue as it seems since it is claimed that many of the current government Public-Private Partnerships are not partnerships at all but merely contractual arrangements (REF).

Auseful delineation is, although, provided by the Audit charge (1998)

“joint working arrangements where parties are otherwise independent bodies who agree to co-operate to achieve common goals, create a new organisational structure on process to achieve these goals, plan and implement a joint programme and share relevant information, tasks and rewards.”

Community Health Partnerships Partnerships for Care, the Health White Paper in Scotland laid strong emphasis on partnership integration and service re-design.

In Scotland, the vast majority of health care is delivered by community based specialists (so-called primary care). There was already a significant degree of partnership working in Scotland through health care co-operatives (LHCCs). LHCCs are voluntary associations of primary health care professionals who come together with other partner agencies such as local authorities to consider the planning and delivery of health services to meet assessed needs of patients and local communities. (Wyld, 2006, 154-73)

Community Health Partnerships would be a more ambitious partnership than LHCCs, would be compulsory, include both primary health service, local authorities and the voluntary sector. They would have a central role in service delivery of primary case and improve the health of local communities by strengthening relationships with all partners to ensure a community focus for health improvement. Thus, overall it was planned to plan and deliver primary care on a community basis through partnerships involving primary care services. There will also be potential to pool budgets and enter into joint management arrangements across a wide range of services. It is also planned that there should be a substantial element of community consultation. (Stuart & Liu, 2006, 43-50)

The Research Topics

This study was carried out under the UK's information ...