Power to the people? Involving users and carers in needs assessments and care planning-views from the practitioner

Central to community care policy is the notion of user and carer involvement in the process of assessment and care management. Drawing on interviews with 65 practitioners from four social work departments in Scotland, the paper describes both the mechanisms they sought to employ to give users and carers greater control over the process, and the factors that inhibited the realization of this goal. The workers' accounts reveal a gap between an ‘ideal’ of user and carer empowerment, and the reality of day to day practice.