ABSTRACT

In recognition of this, successive governments have stressed the importance of health and social care partnerships, from New Labour’s emphasis on ‘joined-up solutions to joined-up problems’ to the Coalition’s focus on ‘integrated care’ (see below for further discussion). This has acquired even greater signifi cance in a period of major fi nancial challenges, with single agencies increasingly unable to discharge their responsibilities without working jointly with a range of partners. Of course, the irony here is that fi nancial pressures can often make people concentrate even more on their own internal ‘must dos’, and partnership working could become even more important but even harder to achieve in a diffi cult policy and fi nancial environment.