Developing Good Practice in Community Care

By Vicky White and John Harris.
Jessica Kingsley Publishing
£14.95
ISBN 1 85302 890 8

Developing
Good Practice… is a collection of perspectives on how community care
services can be developed. It was written by practitioners in Midlands social
services departments, working with the editors from Warwick University – a collaboration
worth repeating elsewhere, as the book focuses on how research supports
practice and vice versa. Individual staff and their teams are wrestling with
how to carry out assessments to a high professional standard while dealing with
an ever-increasing volume of referrals.

The
importance of leadership in equalities development is covered. Good practice
models for joint working with health are set out, as are the positives and
pitfalls of multi-disciplinary teams. None of this is rocket science, but the
basic principles of good community care are always worth repeating. If the book
has a downside, it is that the field is moving so fast that a book like this
can seem dated by the time of publication. Some up-to-date material about
primary care trusts, intermediate care, model performance on delayed transfers
of care and how the new care trusts are shaping up would have been useful. But
the approaches set out in this accessible volume have a continuing relevance.

Anthony
Douglas is executive director of community services, London Borough of
Havering.