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Uncovering History: Private Sector Care Homes for Older People in England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

JULIA JOHNSON ,
SHEENA ROLPH  and
RANDALL SMITH
JULIA JOHNSON*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Health and Social Care, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA.
SHEENA ROLPH
Affiliation:
Faculty of Health and Social Care, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA.
RANDALL SMITH
Affiliation:
School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, 8 Priory Road, Bristol BS8 1TZ
*
Address for correspondence: Julia Johnson, 51 Glanbrydan Avenue, Uplands, Swansea SA2 0HX email: j.s.johnson@open.ac.uk
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Abstract

In conducting his research for The Last Refuge (1962), Peter Townsend visited 173 public, voluntary and private residential care homes for older people in England and Wales. Drawing on his data, now archived at the University of Essex, we traced the subsequent history of these homes and revisited a sample that were still functioning as care homes in 2006. In this article, we focus on the 42 private homes he visited, some of which remain open and were revisited by us in 2005–06. The pre-1980 history of private sector residential care provision for older people is an elusive and poorly charted topic. Drawing on the two data sets for then and now, this article contributes new insights into this area of UK policy and practice.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , April 2010 , pp. 235 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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