Community care in Northern Ireland: a promising start.

Integrated health and social services, generous funding, and a special sense of community have got Northern Ireland off to a promising start after the government's community care reforms. Public ignorance about the new arrangements remains a problem, but there is little evidence of serious hardship in any client group. The biggest threat is to nursing and residential homes, which face closure as increasing numbers of elderly and disabled people opt to stay at home. After only a year and without the benefit of formal evaluation, however, the real problems for disabled people and their carers may not yet have emerged.