Governance systems which are based on assumptions of purposive-rational action have received significant criticism. For example the quality and performance frameworks of the English NHS function on the basis of incentives and sanctions, and have been critiqued in terms of both the logic on which...

It is argued in this paper that much of the empirical research into the public's and patients' perceptions of the adequacy of health care has suffered from conceptual weaknesses. In addition, and maybe as a result of these weaknesses, a contradictory pattern of findings has emerged from this...

Decisions by patients upon when to use health care services are a major influence on the consumption of health care resources. Patient education -- often based upon written information on how to identify symptoms of common illnesses, when to seek help and how to self-treat -- is an increasingly...

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between health beliefs and health behaviour. The study we report was conducted as part of a national campaign to evaluate the benefits of breast self-examination in the early detection of breast cancer, and the purpose of our analysis was...

A lack of time is one of the major reasons given to account for low quality care provided in general practice. One of the basic assumptions inherent in this explanation is that activities in general practice are shaped by the level of patient demand and general practitioners have little control...

There has been a continuing debate about the extent to which the public finds health-care technological innovation acceptable. The public's ambivalence about scientific medicine may have been exacerbated, more recently, by developments such as the introduction of the 'new genetics' with their...

During the post second world war period there has been considerable discussion both within and outside the medical profession about what the role of the general practitioner should be. This study, drawing on data gathered from a national representative sample of general practitioners in England...

A lack of trust between clinicians and junior/middle managers is well documented in health care systems but under-theorized. Face-to-face interactions between clinicians and managers, through which trust is constructed, are vitally shaped by assumptions drawn from local organizational...

Previous research has suggested that patterns of help-seeking behaviour are influenced by who the sufferer consults when deciding whether to seek medical care or not. This research has been extended to include episodes of illness and injury where more formal contacts are brought into the...

Extravagant claims have been made about the power of the Health Belief Model (HBM) to explain both decisions to adopt patterns of health behaviour and to use preventive health services. However, studies where information on beliefs are collected before information on behaviour are not common....