Care Services for Later Life – Transformations and Critiques

Edited
by Anthony M Warnes, Lorna Warren and Michael Nolan.
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
£17.95
ISBN 1 85302 8525

Stemming from the 1998 conference of the
British Society of Gerontology, an excellent, coherent and highly
accessible book has been produced by the editors, together with
Anne Jamieson and Kate Smith.

Gillian Dalley’s chapter “Defining difference”
needs to be essential reading for all those trying to meet the
challenge of the National Service Framework and NHS Plan. More
pleasing is the attention given to older people themselves in
bringing about change, and the Better Government for Older People
agenda is reflected in the sections dealing with citizenship and
collective action.

A nugget of a chapter is that by Roger Coleman
who argues that service construction and provision needs to move
away from deficit, decline, disability and dependency to
well-being, activity and independence.

The social care needs of ethnic minority older
people are expertly covered, although better integration between
individual contributors would have been welcome.

If any reader came to this book and found
nothing, that would reflect not the feast contained in its 18
chapters but the consumer’s appetite to meet the challenges.

Mervyn Eastman is director, UK Better
Government for Older People Network.