Purpose – The paper aims to take a reflective stance on the relationship between policy/evidence and practice, which, the authors argue, is conceptually under‐developed. The paper aims to show that current research perspectives fail to frame evidence and policy in relation to practice....

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss policy analysis in Nepal and review the wide range of choices feasible in decentralisation decision making. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper an iterative qualitative method was developed and used in the research, which...

Purpose – The Scottish Parliament has recently formed Community Health Partnerships (CHPs), in which health and social care providers come together within a unified organisational framework. This paper aims to assess the extent to which employees identify with their profession and whether...

In the absence of central guidance on the development of integrated primary care organisations, a diversity of models is emerging. This paper examines the management arrangements of Scottish local health care co‐operatives (LHCCs). A postal questionnaire survey of all 79 LHCCs was conducted....

The last 20 years have seen increasing interest in the use of Delphi in a wide range of health‐care applications. However, this use has been accompanied by attempts to codify and define a “true Delphi”. Many authors take a narrow view of the purpose of Delphi and/or advocate a single...

This paper describes managed care, competition and high health care costs and reductions in funding as the major market forces that affect US academic health centers. As academic health centers continue to preserve their missions of providing patient care, educating and training health...

Explores the implications for continuity of care of the wide range of policy initiatives currently affecting the management and use of human resources in the UK National Health Service. Draws on the findings of a short study undertaken in 2001 comprising a policy document analysis and a series...

Ethnic minority people are frequently under‐represented in clinical trials. This potentially affects the generalisability/external validity of the trial findings. This not only has important repercussions regarding the safety and the efficacy of new drug use in ethnic minority groups, but also...

Palliative care is a complex environment in which teams of healthcare professionals are constantly challenged to match the configuration of care delivery to suit the dynamics of the patient's bio‐medical, social and spiritual situations as they change during the end‐of‐life process. In...

Purpose – This paper aims to be a theoretical examination of the role of individuals in sponsoring and facilitating effective, systemic change in organisations. Using reports of a number of high‐profile initiatives to improve patient safety, it seeks to analyse the role of individual health...