2005-10-02 A comprehensive and monumentally authoritative tome

This updated third edition of Community Care Practice and the Law will have nurses, OTs, social workers and their managers up and down the country either feeling very smug and self-satisfied or else thrown into a panic at the realisation of all that they are doing wrong. Probably, a mixture of the two. It is an unnerving experience to read one page and congratulate yourself on your excellent, lawful, good administration only to turn the page and find there is some area of your practice that leaves you wide-open to litigation. I am sure this is not the intention of the book or its author. For one thing, at 560 pages, not even the most assiduous reader would be expected to read the book from cover to cover. Moreover, the tone is unremittingly fair-minded and, somewhat surprisingly, almost chirpy in places.

The test of this kind of book is whether it does its job as an authoritative reference tool. I tried it out by looking up a few random areas - direct payments for carers, information-sharing, statutory duty to provide accommodation, the legal status of care plans. The book came up trumps on all counts. Moreover, topics could be pinpointed equally well from the index or the contents page.

The book is in five parts. Part One provides an overview and covers underlying mechanisms, legal principles, good administration and remedies. Part Two considers community care legislation and guidance. Part Three covers housing, home adaptations, NHS services and joint working. Part Four explores adult protection, decision-making capacity, information sharing, human rights and disability discrimination and Part Five health and safety at work, negligence, contract and national regulation of care provision. Community Care Practice and the Law proves itself to be comprehensive and monumentally authoritative.

by Tony Gillam