Public preferences for the care of dependency groups

In the context of the continuing debate about how responsibility for the care of the disabled, chronically sick and elderly (collectively termed dependency groups) should be allocated as between the family and state and informal and formal caring agencies, this paper reports the basic findings of a survey of care preferences advocated by the public in three locations in Scotland, an urban metropolis, a large city and a small town in a rural setting. The results show that while there is little difference in preference patterns between the locations the public is discriminating in its support for care arrangements for patient/client groups with age-related physical and mental impairment. Overall, there is considerable support for a range of services termed community based professional care--day care centres, day hospitals and in respect of the elderly, sheltered housing. Residential care is less often preferred with the notable exception of senile dementia. Similarly, there is only limited support for informal care without professional involvement. The public, it seems, are not inclined to allocate the major responsibility for the care of dependency groups to the family and close kin preferring instead a continued policy of partnership between informal care systems and the welfare state in which the former does not replace the latter.