Stakeholder perspectives on domiciliary elderly care in the UK

The aim of this report is to provide an overview of stakeholders’ perspectives of work quality in domiciliary elderly care in the UK, which employs approximately 675,000 persons, nearly twenty-five percent of the 2.7 million employed in the health and social care sector (Office for National Statistics, 2010; Skills for Care, 2010). Domiciliary elderly care involves the provision of personal care (e.g., preparing meals, bathing, dressing) to older adults in their own homes and is a growing area within the health and social care sector. A key change within this sector over the last twenty years has been the movement from publically funded care being provided in-house by local authorities, to local authorities being responsible for contracting out the work to private and not-for-profit organisations, i.e., the independent sector. Five stakeholders were invited to discuss employment conditions and trends within the domiciliary elderly care sector, including a local authority, an employers’ association, the regulatory body concerned with standards of care provision, the sector skills council that is responsible for skill provision in the social care sector, and a trade union.