OBJECTIVES To discover the views of patients about their experiences across the interface between primary and secondary health care, including referral from general practitioners, outpatient and inpatient care, discharge, and aftercare. DESIGN A qualitative study involving individual and focus group interviews of patients and interviews of carers. SUBJECTS 33 patients who had attended at le...

BACKGROUND Global interest and investment in close-to-community health services is increasing. Kenya is currently revising its community health strategy (CHS) alongside political devolution, which will result in revisioning of responsibility for local services. This article aims to explore drivers of policy change from key informant perspectives and to study perceptions of current community hea...

Ipswich Hospital Emergency Department played a vital role in the Post Acute Treatment in the Home Program (PATH) of West Moreton District Health Service. PATH used two strategies to reduce the district reliance on acute hospital beds: a short-stay unit for rapid assessment, treatment and early discharge of patients with simple conditions; and a hospital-in-the-home program utilising community h...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the impact of a model of rural community health service (CHS) on the use and acceptability of primary healthcare services. DESIGN Quasi-experimental. SETTING Two adjacent rural counties in China. PARTICIPANTS 5842 residents in 2009 and 3807 in 2010 from 980 households in 7 intervention townships and 49 villages; 2232 residents in 2009 and 2315 in 2010 from 628 househ...

Declaration of interest T.B. has receivedpayments for lectures and consultancies from Eli Lilly,Janssen and Otsuka inthe past 5 years. The past 25 years have witnessed an explosion in mental health services research. A 1980 review of research in community mental health services (Braun et al, 1981) cited a dozen studies and concluded that there was little evidence that the newer services sustain...

BACKGROUND Community health service in China is designed to provide a convenient and affordable primary health service for the city residents, and to promote health equity. Based on data from a large national study of 35 cities across China, we examined the characteristics of the patients and the utilization of community health institutions (CHIs), and assessed the role of community health serv...

BACKGROUND Home mechanical ventilation probably represents the most advanced and complicated type of medical treatment provisioned outside a hospital setting. The aim of this study was both to explore the challenges experienced by health care professionals in community health care services when caring for patients dependent on home mechanical ventilation, continual care and highly advanced tech...

OBJECTIVE To examine how those managing and providing community-based musculoskeletal (MSK) services have experienced recent policy allowing patients to choose any provider that meets certain quality standards from the National Health Service (NHS), private or voluntary sector. DESIGN Intrinsic case study combining qualitative analysis of interviews and field notes. SETTING An NHS Community...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of a postnatal home-visiting programme delivered by community health nurses to socially disadvantaged mothers in South Australia. DESIGN The intervention group of 428 mothers lived in metropolitan Adelaide and the comparison group of 239 mothers lived in regional towns where the programme was not yet available. All participating mothers met health service eli...

Manual handling injuries represented both the highest costs and largest proportion of workers compensation claims for the South Australian Department of Human Services from 1995 to 1999 (Risk Management Services 2000). There is evidence to suggest the manutention method of manual handling training can reduce workplace injuries. A retrospective audit of injuries was conducted at Metropolitan Dom...