the article reviews ways that commissioning editors in academic book publishing can better understand the end users of their products. It discusses issues in resourcing market research in publishing companies, before going on to look at some of the existing internal and external sources that commissioning editors can draw on. It then considers both qualitative and quantitative ways of testing a...

2) Commissioning has often been described as the weak link in the NHS since the purchaser-provider split was introduced in 1991. This Committee and its predecessors have highlighted its shortcomings on a number of occasions. Commissioning health services is a complex and difficult task and no other health system in the world that we are aware of places as much emphasis on it as a means of drivi...

Both in health and social care, commissioning is a term that has been used increasingly as an answer to many of today’s challenges in these policy fields. However, it is not always clear what commissioning for health and well-being exactly encompasses and how it can be put into action to achieve the best results and outcomes. This book gives an overview about what commissioning for health and w...

Background: The commissioning accuracy of Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT) need to be evaluated.Objective: To test and evaluate commissioning accuracy of VMAT based on the TG 119 protocols at local institution. Material and Methods: The phantom, structure sets, VMAT and IMRT beam parameter setup, dose prescriptions and planning objectives were following TG 119 guidelines to c...

Objectives To explore the 'added value' that general practitioners (GPs) bring to commissioning in the English NHS. We describe the experience of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in the context of previous clinically led commissioning policy initiatives. Methods Realist evaluation. We identified the programme theories underlying the claims made about GP 'added value' in commissioning from i...

Conscious sedation is an integral part of modern day dental care and should be delivered through a high quality, effective and evidence-based approach. Commissioning of NHS dental services in England is currently under review by NHS England and the National Dental Commissioning Group. This group has identified the management of vulnerable people including anxious patients, as one of its priorit...

The threshold requirement for surrogate motherhood entails that a commissioning parent or parents must be permanently unable to give birth to a child. The question of whether a commissioning mother who suffers from a permanent illness that does not cause infertility as such, but that renders pregnancy a significant health risk to such mother and/or to her prospective child in utero, has arisen ...

If you are reading this document, it is likely to be because you have an interest in how we can improve health care commissioning in the NHS and an appetite to use international comparisons to help us to do so. Our rationale for asking Chris Ham to produce this high level paper was based on a conviction that management decision making should be as much as is practicable evidence based (acknowle...

Recent health policy in England has demanded greater involvement of patients and the public in the commissioning of health and social care services. Public involvement is seen as a means of driving up service quality, reducing health inequalities and achieving value in commissioning decisions. This paper presents a summary and analysis of the forms that public involvement in commissioning are t...