Partnership working has become a central feature of British social welfare policy since 1997. Although this development is applicable to all areas of public welfare, nowhere is it more evident than in the planning and provision of care that overlaps health and social services. The literature survey described in the present paper focused on research examining the impact of partnership working in these areas to assess the evidence concerning its effects and to investigate how partnership 'success' is conceptualised. The literature conceptualised the success of partnerships in two main ways: (1) process issues, such as how well the partners work together in addressing joint aims and the long-term sustainability of the partnership; and (2) outcome issues, including changes in service delivery, and subsequent effects on the health or well-being of service users. The authors found that research into partnerships has centred heavily on process issues, while much less emphasis has been given to outcome success. If social welfare policy is to be more concerned with improving service delivery and user outcomes than with the internal mechanics of administrative structures and decision-making, this is a knowledge gap that urgently needs to be filled.

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The establishment of partnerships has been a central feature of British social welfare policy since 1997 when the New Labour government came to power. Although the academic attention given to partnership working since then has grown considerably, there have been few attempts to link conceptual models of partnerships with existing forms. This paper addresses this gap and finds that, while there are links between actual and model partnerships, there is little evidence that actual partnerships have been designed or structured to meet their particular tasks.

English Since coming to power in 1997, the New Labour government has placed heavy emphasis on partnerships – between organisations, services and professionals – as the preferred means of delivering coordinated health and social care services. This article aims to provide a critical overview and synthesis of both the discourse and the practice associated with this policy imperative. First, it summarises the range of policies that have promoted health and social care partnerships since 1997. It then discusses the definitions and rationales that have been proposed for these partnerships and some of the challenges involved in evaluating their ‘success’. This is followed by a critical examination of the available evidence for the ‘success’ of recent partnerships between the health and social care sectors. The article concludes with some reflections on the evidence that partnerships constitute either an effective method of service planning and delivery or a distinctive ‘Third Way’ mode of governance in relation to these particular public sector services.