Patterns of management in community units

Abstract

Community health services have a chequered history; many would argue that it has been one of marginality and associated low status, pointing to the fact that they have been variously moved from one agency to another and have been overshadowed by other, more prestigious sectors of the health and social services establishments. At the inception of the National Health Service, it was decided that they should continue under local authority control, as they had been in the past. After the health service reorganization in 1974 they became the responsibility of the newly established Area Health Authorities. It is only in recent years, however, that they have developed a clear identity of their own within the formal structure of the NHS.