Table 1.
Four frames of health and social care partnerships
| Frame | Why are health and social care partnerships necessary? |
|---|---|
| Structural | Legacy of Beveridge. Due to the way the welfare state was established, according to notions of big hierarchical government therefore health and social care organisations exist as silos. Partnerships must exist to overcome these structural barriers. |
| Social Challenges | The issues facing public services are primarily ‘wicked' ones, which no one organisation could possibly deal with on their own. Partnership coalitions are necessary in order to combat these issues and must be led by the public sector because of the values which these moral institutions enshrine. |
| High Performance | Public sector organisations must become more ‘business-like’ if they are to be more efficient and better able to respond to public demands. This has led to the disaggregation of larger public sector organisations to the local level. Partnerships are necessary to oversee the strategic direction of local areas and to performance manage service delivery organisations within the local area. |
| Third Way | Partnership is a central tool of the third way political ideology and is necessary in overcoming the limitations of ‘big government’ on the one hand and the free market on the other. |