ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a time of general gloom and anxiety about the effects of present British government policies upon health and social services. A recent comprehensive study of poverty in the United Kingdom shows that the elderly suffer the greatest relative poverty in our society, even taking the most conservative and widely accepted indices. There is now evidence that most social workers spend most of their time not in face-to-face contact with the client but in doing things for and about the client. The frail elderly frequently require a wide variety of services if they are to remain in the community. It is, in the author's view, appropriate for the social worker to act as mobiliser and co-ordinator of these services. The present fragmentation has caused inco-ordination of activity in the field and consequent duplication of effort and risk of conflicting advice being offered, especially where departmental policies vary.
