ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book contributes to the overall process of the study by illuminating a number of key themes through which it is possible to examine how the restructuring of health and social care is impacting on the voluntary sector. It explores the development of different approaches to the examination of problems of health and illness. The book then lays out the analysis of the substantive data. It shows how care restructuring is experienced by one set of actors within the dependency network and their inter-relationships within it, in particular with the voluntary sector. The book considers the role of informal carers and the private sector experience of care restructuring respectively, and their influence on the shape of voluntary care provision. It concludes by discussing the utility of the dependency network as a framework for understanding care restructuring at the meso- and micro-level and its potential for examining geographical problems in health and social welfare.
