Seebohm Report

The Seebohm Committee report recommended that social care services should be more connected with each other and other health and welfare services.^[4] They emphasised care in the community and preventative care as being more financially efficient.^[2]

In March 1968, the Seebohm report proposed that services for children, the elderly and for mental welfare should be brought together into a single family services department.^[5] They used the phrase "one door on which to knock".^[6] This approach sought to provide services to prevent ill health and difficulties rather than solve particular needs and problems and challenged the hospital-centred model.^[7]

In a House of Lords session of 1969, Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte spoke of waiting lists for residential care and spoke in support of the Seebohm Report recommendations.^[2]

In 1970, the Local Authority Social Services Act received royal assent, leading to the creation of social services departments in councils as suggested by the Seebohm report.^[8][6][9] Richard Crossman, the Labour Member of Parliament who saw this act through, was sceptical about the practicality of the report's recommendations.^[10]

Whilst accepting the need for a single authority, the Royal Medico-Psychological Association declared themselvesd against the proposed reorganisation of mental welfare and child guidance services.^[11] Nicholas Timmins suggested that the creation of "generic social workers" based on Seebohm recommendations led to the decline of the Medical Officer of Health.^[12]