ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at some of the key publications of the early years of Community Care policy implementation that define the context for care management in community care. The publications are all government or government sponsored documents which, we might believe, construct the reality of service delivery in community care. What are the expectations and intentions revealed in these key texts? It was important for me to address these questions more rigorously in the wake of the fieldwork interviews in Shire and Borough, because of the confusion of role which was so evident. Confusion of role was resulting in a haphazard use of discretion by care managers. The consequence of this ill-considered use of discretion was a fundamental undermining of policy intentions. To return to the key texts meant an opportunity to assess the degree to which policy and procedure intentions for care management were clear.
