Davies, Bleddyn
(2007)
Securing good care for older people: taking a long-term view.
Ageing Horizons, 6.
pp. 12-27.
ISSN 1746-1081
Abstract
The paper aims to explain and evaluate two key features of Securing Good Care for Older People, the Wanless Report on alternative mechanisms for funding long-term care of older people. One is the new elements of the methodology for evaluating the alternatives (section 1.1). The paper argues that more successfully than previously and analyses in other countries, these elements focus attention on what are really the core issues: the means and ends which are the unique foci of long-term care, and estimates of the consequences of alternatives for them. By doing so, the report faces the politicians and policy analysis and research communities with a formidable challenge, to master and contribute to the development of the new framework and evidence. Failure to meet the challenge will increases the risk that the policy system will reinforce rather than weaken causes of gross inequity and inefficiency caused by the under-funding of long-term care seemingly unanswerably demonstrated by the report. The second key feature is the type of funding model the Report recommends given expected changes in the balance between demands and public expenditure. Section 1.2 argues that the report’s analysis as successfully transforms the state of the argument about this as much as about the framework, methodology and evidence for evaluating alternatives, demonstrating the relative weakness of models widely advocated a decade ago. Part 2 discusses how to build on the Report. Section 2.1 discusses the framing of issues and the analysis of evidence for each of the key foci of the report’s main contribution to evaluation methodology. Section 2.2 discusses whether the recommended model would be the wisest choice given the environment likely during the next few decades.
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