My initial response to the white paper on integration was a flash back to being a young inexperienced trainee social worker. I was sitting in juvenile court as the magistrates told my young offender that basically they would give him another chance to show he could make something of his life. My initial relief that he wasn’t going to get a custodial sentence turned into panic as he chose this moment to speak. “ won’t make a difference “ he mumbled but loud enough for the whole court room to hear. The magistrates were temporarily stunned into shocked silence. I knew if I didn’t do something quickly it was going to go very ,very bad for Peter.
I knew that what Peter was trying to express was not his contempt for any thing these “silly old fools” might say or decide about his immediate future but his frustration and disappoint . Frustration in that he had just endured six weeks in a particularly brutal assessment centre where he and I thought the expertise would identify his above average intelligence and support his desire to transfer from the special residential school he didn’t feel he needed to attend to the local comprehensive his brothers had attended and gone on to university. This would also mean he could live at home as he did in the school holidays. He did concede that his behaviour at school was not always good. But this he claimed was because he was bored. This wouldn’t be the case at the comp.
How could I possibly rescue the situation. It was against protocol but I jumped up and said ,” I think what Peter means is that he is disappointed that he will still be attending the special school” . And sat down. The magistrate asked Peter if this was correct and he confirmed it was. After a short lecture on how lucky he was to be given another chance and how he should make the most of it the magistrates moved on to the next case.
I don’t know what happened to Peter . I went on to become a Director of community services with extensive experience of trying to make health and social care services better integrated with fewer risks of people failing between the gaps as both the NHS and LA SSD struggled with budget cuts and increased demand. My experience was that Acute Hospital Trust took every opportunity to blame LA social Service Departments for so called , “ Blocked bed “ often unreasonably. That a lot of time, energy and good will was used up deciding who was responsible for paying for an individual client /patient care when the care cost for someone with multiple or sever disabilities ran into thousands of pounds a week! And whatever was going on in the boardrooms or conference rooms front line workers, GP’s , District nurses, social workers and home helps tried to coordinate services, reduce duplication, share information and support vulnerable people despite reorganisations, the introduction of commissioning, outsourcing , and devastating budget cuts.
So my reaction to the White Paper is the same as Peter all those years ago.” Won’t make a difference “.
Blair McPherson former Director.
