there is an increasing policy emphasis on the integration of care, both within the healthcare sector and also between the health and social care sectors, with the simple aim of ensuring that individuals get the right care, in the right place, at the right time. however, implementing this simple aim is rather more complex. in this editorial, we seek to make sense of this complexity and ask: what...

There is an increasing policy emphasis on the integration of care, both within the healthcare sector and also between the health and social care sectors, with the simple aim of ensuring that individuals get the right care, in the right place, at the right time. However, implementing this simple aim is rather more complex. In this editorial, we seek to make sense of this complexity and ask: what...

Background: The voluntary sector has long been recognised as making an important contribution to individual and community health. In the UK, however, the links between primary health care services and the voluntary and community sector are often underdeveloped. Social prescribing is an innovative approach, which aims to promote the use of the voluntary sector within primary health care. Social ...

This paper describes research undertaken as part of an MA study in leadership. It draws on interviews with six high profile leaders at the fore front of end of life care sector in the UK. Its findings and emerging themes offer insights about the opportunities for social work leaders in palliative care in the future and how the profession and palliative care sector address current barriers to ta...

Over the past 25 years, and more recently driven by the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act, the balance of social care provision has shifted from a position of in-house dominance towards a situation where the independent sector accounts for the majority of activity. This trend has been developing since the 1980s in residential care, but the independent sector only became the largest domiciliary ca...

Increasing focus on health inequities has brought renewed attention to two related policy discourses - primary health care and the social determinants of health. Both prioritise health equity and also promote a broad view of health, multisectoral action and the participation of empowered communities. Differences arise in the lens each applies to the health sector, with resultant tensions around...

BACKGROUND The private sector plays a large role in health services delivery in low- and middle-income countries; yet significant gaps remain in the quality and accessibility of private sector services. Clinical social franchising, which applies the commercial franchising model to achieve social goals and improve health care, is increasingly used in developing countries to respond to these limi...

This paper examines health care reform in urban and rural China. Before health care reform, Chinese health service facilities were run entirely by the state and basically they performed a social welfare function. This health care system greatly improved the population health conditions but many problems started to emerge in 1980s when the economic reform started. Since then, the government has ...

objectives this study is the first of its kind to determine the framework, advantages, and limitations of bot contracts for health care projects in selected countries. background advantages and limitations of build-operate-transfer (bot) contracts in various forms of public-private partnership (ppp) arrangements have not been studied. conclusions this study suggests that more information transp...