Community Care in England and France: Reforms and the Improvement of Equity and Efficiency

England and France have contrasting systems in community care for elderly persons as in other areas of social policy. The aims of this book are: the comparison of community care service and financing systems; the comparison of reform arguments and history over the last decade; the comparison of who uses how much of what services; and with what impact on their needs and the probability of having to enter institutions for long-term care. The book compares systems and describes contemporary reform arguments and proposals. It presents evidence from a collection and analysis of quantitative data, made for the comparison of the two countries, and based on matched area samples collecting comparable information about cohorts of new users on two or more occasions. The book also shows how the need related circumstances of users differ between countries and within each country between areas. The book also shows how and why the French care benefits for community care have more effect on the central policy goals of community care policy than its British equivalent, and how the French services have smaller effects on this outcome than the British equivalents.