The recent story of a National Health Service body abandoning its plan to transfer services to a social enterprise could be damaging to a sector still working hard to ensure people understand what it is and why it can be an effective guardian of our public services.
While far from being new, the social enterprise model has more recently found a home in public service delivery areas such as housing, leisure, social care and, of late, in the NHS. There is simplicity to the thinking behind this.
It’s hard to argue against a public service being run in a business-like way, by organizations that exist to benefit society, are accountable to local communities and to their staff, and where profits are reinvested for the benefit of those communities.
At Social Enterprise UK we regularly poll the general public on who they’d prefer to deliver their public services and repeatedly community-owned businesses that reinvest their profits come out as the preferred model of delivery. The risk for the social enterprise sector, highlighted by the headlines around the recent decision by NHS Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust to put the brakes on the transfer of community care services to Gloucestershire Care Services CIC, is that the mainstream sometimes confuses social enterprises with other types of businesses.
Social enterprise has become part of the government’s public service agenda, which means that it’s also become haunted in the wider discussion surrounding the future of the NHS, in other word, it is very worried.
People are bewildered, and it’s vital that the social enterprise sector continues to put some clear water between the private sector and social enterprise. As long as social enterprises are asset-locked, they can’t be sold or privatized. And they don’t have shareholders. Instead profits are reinvested locally to benefit the local community.
In our experience, social enterprises that deliver health and social care services often fend their staff, patients and the wider community to be their biggest champions.
Staff talk of renewed commitment to the reason they entered public service in the first place, of the freedom to make the changes that have frustrated them for years, of the ability to be more flexible and responsive to patient’s needs. And service users talk of having a real and meaningful say in how services are designed and delivered.
What do we learn about the National Health Service body in the first paragraph

All levels of professional care, from public and private facilities to prisons and the welfare system, are competing for qualified personnel. With shortages everywhere, all areas have a surplus of opportunities. Selix advises job seekers to explore marriage and family counseling, social work, psychiatry or bachelor-level work in counseling and nursing. All are related but very different in scope. Of course, shortages are the greatest in fields where more education is required.
"Mental health work is not the highest paying field, but it’s among the most satisfying," he contends. "People don’t retire; they work late because they enjoy what they are doing—helping another human being to overcome a problem. "
If candidates are willing to work in the public community stage of mental health, there are allowance programs available from colleges and universities.
"I would encourage passionate people to ’ go for it’ because of the amount of job choices available," he declares. "It’s a growing field and the demand for staff is much larger than the current supply. "
Nancy Kincald, spokeswoman for the California Department of Mental Health agrees. "We’re always recruiting qualified people," she reports. "But I don’t think that is exclusive to mental health; all trades including nursing and law enforcement are having difficulties. Seventy-six million baby boomers are marching toward retirement and that is a huge wave of the workforce to replace. "
Generations Apart
It’s been more difficult to recruit into the social services, she adds, because a generation of young people believes the push is toward college and a future that is more financially secure.
"This philosophy is so different from the 1960s," she observes. "Young people were motivated to help others because of President Kennedy and the Peace Corps and other philosophies. But that’s not in the middle of today’s radar screen.
"I think young people today want to carry a briefcase and work for Google. "
However, for those looking for a meaningful career in the mental health field, there is a fast track to a good paying job without years of schooling. The Mental Health Department has been working closely with community colleges to bring people into the system.
Cuesta College, for example, offers a psychiatric technical program where students attend classroom instruction and gain hands-on experience at the Atascadero State hospital.
"We help graduates of the program to get their state license so they can begin working in the hospital," Kincaid explains. " These technicians work as a treatment team alongside nurses and physicians to help with mentally ill patient evaluation and treatment. Students could be hired to work as a state employee in the hospital while they are in the program. "
The best place to investigate careers in the mental health field, she advises, is a career counselor’s office at your local community college. Job shadowing is one of the best ways to learn what a day in the life of a psychiatric technician is really like.
Kincaid sums it up as a very rewarding challenge. "When I speak with staff in the mental hospitals, they tell me the work is not easy because people are in crisis. However, they also tell me the most rewarding part of the job is to be part of a treatment that turns someone’s life around. \

All levels of professional care, from public and private facilities to prisons and the welfare system, are competing for qualified personnel. With shortages everywhere, all areas have a surplus of opportunities. Selix advises job seekers to explore marriage and family counseling, social work, psychiatry or bachelor-level work in counseling and nursing. All are related but very different in scope. Of course, shortages are the greatest in fields where more education is required.
"Mental health work is not the highest paying field, but it’s among the most satisfying," he contends. "People don’t retire; they work late because they enjoy what they are doing—helping another human being to overcome a problem. "
If candidates are willing to work in the public community stage of mental health, there are allowance programs available from colleges and universities.
"I would encourage passionate people to ’ go for it’ because of the amount of job choices available," he declares. "It’s a growing field and the demand for staff is much larger than the current supply. "
Nancy Kincald, spokeswoman for the California Department of Mental Health agrees. "We’re always recruiting qualified people," she reports. "But I don’t think that is exclusive to mental health; all trades including nursing and law enforcement are having difficulties. Seventy-six million baby boomers are marching toward retirement and that is a huge wave of the workforce to replace. "
Generations Apart
It’s been more difficult to recruit into the social services, she adds, because a generation of young people believes the push is toward college and a future that is more financially secure.
"This philosophy is so different from the 1960s," she observes. "Young people were motivated to help others because of President Kennedy and the Peace Corps and other philosophies. But that’s not in the middle of today’s radar screen.
"I think young people today want to carry a briefcase and work for Google. "
However, for those looking for a meaningful career in the mental health field, there is a fast track to a good paying job without years of schooling. The Mental Health Department has been working closely with community colleges to bring people into the system.
Cuesta College, for example, offers a psychiatric technical program where students attend classroom instruction and gain hands-on experience at the Atascadero State hospital.
"We help graduates of the program to get their state license so they can begin working in the hospital," Kincaid explains. " These technicians work as a treatment team alongside nurses and physicians to help with mentally ill patient evaluation and treatment. Students could be hired to work as a state employee in the hospital while they are in the program. "
The best place to investigate careers in the mental health field, she advises, is a career counselor’s office at your local community college. Job shadowing is one of the best ways to learn what a day in the life of a psychiatric technician is really like.
Kincaid sums it up as a very rewarding challenge. "When I speak with staff in the mental hospitals, they tell me the work is not easy because people are in crisis. However, they also tell me the most rewarding part of the job is to be part of a treatment that turns someone’s life around. \