Perspectives on Care at Home for Older People

Demographic and epidemiological changes mean that frail older people have come to be seen as an expensive problem for health care systems. The challenge for professionals and policy-makers is to find ways to respond to the coming crisis by delivering high-quality care in the home. This collection offers a critical analysis of home care policy and practice. It focuses on how high-quality care is provided and the practices and policies that support this. It offers case studies (both policy- and practice-oriented empirical studies) from countries that share a basic orientation to social welfare: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The nine chapters set out a critical agenda for the development of "good" practices in challenging times. This book is essential reading for students, practitioners and researchers who wish to understand diverse problems in care provision for frail older persons and the complexities of policy responses in different health and social care contexts.

Kristin Bjornsdottir is Professor in the Faculty of Nursing, School of Health Sciences at the University of Iceland, Iceland.

Christine Ceci is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Mary Ellen Purkis is Dean and Professor in the Faculty of Human and Social Development at University of Victoria, Canada.