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26 Critical Soc. Pol'y 5 (2006)

handle is hein.journals/critsplcy26 and id is 1 raw text is: U PETER SCOURFIELD Anglia Ruskin University 'What matters is what works'? How discourses of modernization have both silenced and limited debate on domiciliary care for older people Abstract Policy statements about the care of vulnerable older people repeatedly emphasize the desirability of keeping people at home. An enduring problem in implementing this strategy is the ongoing crisis within the quasi-market in domiciliary care. The government announced in 2004 that it wanted a new vision for adult social care. In such circumstances, it could be argued that, in order to achieve home care services that are stable, flexible and better placed to integrate more effectively with health agencies, local authorities should significantly expand in-house provision. Despite exhortations from ministers to think the unthink- able, such a proposal is actually 'unsayable'. This article discusses how discourses of modernization exclude ideas that imply an expansion of directly provided social care. Such discourses have so much invested in the shedding of what it regards as outmoded 'welfarist' baggage, they are blind to proposals that could improve the lives of older, vulnerable citizens. Key words: modernizing social services, quasi-markets Introduction There are two main parts to this article. First I will outline why I believe it is reasonable for policy makers to, at least, consider the expansion of local authority run home care services (hereafter referred to as in-house provision) in order to help achieve the policy aims for vulnerable older people, especially helping them to stay living at home and for services to be person-centred, flexible and reliable. The second part of the paper will show why such a proposal, plausible as it Copyright @ 2006 Critical Social Policy Ltd 0261-0183 86 Vol. 26(1): 5-30; 059764 SAGE PUBLICATIONS (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), 10.1177/0261018306059764 5

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