Catherine Needham, University of Birmingham

Anette Fagertun, University of Western Norway

Emily Burn, University of Birmingham

Long-term care systems are in crisis in many countries, due to common issues such as population ageing and workforce shortages. This is evident in many countries despite different welfare histories and care regimes – for example in Nordic countries (Hansen and Dahl, 2021) and in the UK (Needham and Hall, 2023). This symposium will explore the care crisis and routes out of it.

In her paper Dahl explores the care crisis in a social-democratic welfare state and how it differs from the crisis experienced in liberal and continental European welfare regimes. Dahl outlines Danish policy about the recruitment of care workers and care professionals from the Global South and other possible routes to reduce the care crisis.

Jacobsen et al’s paper looks at the concept of innovation as a policy solution for welfare state crisis. The paper includes a discussion of potential consequences of the present Norwegian discourse on innovation, including attending to a seemingly “technologification” of care and care planning.

Ramsøy et als’s paper explores innovation within Norway’s municipal home care services. While substantial changes to work-organization, burden-sharing with relatives, implementation of welfare technology, and synergies with the third sector were all planned as part of the project, the extent of their implementation was largely curtailed by economic turmoil.

In their paper, Burn and Needham, look at health and care integration in the UK as a route out of crisis through potentially saving money and providing joined-up care. In particular they focus on institutional layering, and the problems created when innovative structures are incoherently layered on top of reforms from previous eras.

The symposium is particularly oriented to two of the conference themes:

• The institutional setting of care systems and care policy
• Social and policy innovation on care services and care arrangements, and its impact

Papers:

Hanne Marlene Dahl, The Care crisis in the Nordics: Characteristics, Consequences and some policy options.

Frode F. Jacobsen, Laila Nordstrand Berg, Anette Fagertun, Ingrid Jerve Ramsøy, The travel of a concept: Innovation as a panacea for the Norwegian public sector

Ingrid Jerve Ramsøy, Anette Fagertun, and Frode Fadnes Jacobsen, Cost-saving as innovation? Betterment in municipal home-care services in Norway.

Emily Burn and Catherine Needham, Integration of health and care as a route out of the care crisis: freeing up innovation or silting up the system?

Discussant: Kate Hamblin, University of Sheffield