There are significant variations in how healthcare systems and health professionals are regulated globally. One feature that they increasingly have in common is an emphasis on the value of including members of the public in quality assurance processes. While many argue that this will help better serve the public interest, others question how far the changing regulatory reform agenda is still dominated by medical interests.Bringing together leading academics worldwide, this collecti...

In Realities of Canadian Nursing, influential scholars throughout Canada give voice to the unheard concerns of nurses and go to great lengths to ensure the text offers readers more than an update on current and pressing professional, legal, ethical, political, social, economic, and environmental issues in nursing and healthcare. In chapter 1 of the text, authors Carol McDonald PhD, RN and Marjorie McIntyre RN, PhD offer a Framework for Analysis, which gives students and educators a shared ...

A updated overview of Australia’s health care system, addressing its core features, concepts and issuesUnderstanding the Australian Health Care System, 2nd edition is an excellent university book for undergraduate and postgraduate students alike.Published four years after the original, this second edition has been fully revised to reflect major Australian health care reform. Its fully up-to-date content includes current governmental and le...

Making policy is what governments do, but there are some fascinating and hotly debated issues associated with how government decisions get made in the interests of the people. The concept and practice of evidence-based policy-making insists that properly developed public policy draws on the best available evidence. This book considers how governments in Canada have historically interacted with research and what directions these interactions may take in the future. The goal of government maki...

Law and the Technologies of the Twenty-First Century provides a contextual account of the way in which law functions in a broader regulatory environment across different jurisdictions. It identifies and clearly structures the four key challenges that technology poses to regulatory efforts, distinguishing between technology as a regulatory target and tool, and guiding the reader through an emerging field that is subject to rapid change. By extensive use of examples and extracts from the tex...

Activism is action on behalf of a cause, action that goes beyond what is conventional or routine and is relative to the actions by others.Health activism is a growing area of interest for many who work to improve health at both national and international levels because it offers a more direct approach to achieve lasting social and political change. This book, for the first time, provides a clear foundation to the theory, evidence-base and strategies that can be harnessed to bring a...

As health policy at a national level has ever increasing impact on local health services, it is essential that public health students understand how the development and implementation of policy and strategy provide the framework for improving quality, innovation, productivity and prevention in the delivery of healthcare.The book is divided into two sections, with section one covering a strategic overview of national policies, and section two giving specific local implementation of ...

Capacity building – which focuses on understanding the obstacles that prevent organisations from realising their goals, while promoting those features that help them to achieve measurable and sustainable results – is vital to improve the delivery of health care in both developed and developing countries. Organisations are important structural building blocks of health systems because they provide platforms for delivery of curative and preventive health services, and facilitate health workf...

An understanding of social policy is vital for engaging practically with social work values, and dealing with political and ethical questions about responsibility, rights and our understanding of ‘the good society’. This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to social policy, tailored to the needs of a social work audience.The new edition of this popular and accessible text analyses current policies and policy themes relevant to social work, and locates them in the context...

Social work and poverty: A critical approach provides a timely review of the key issues facing social workers and service users in working together to combat poverty.First, it situates social work and poverty within a historical context, then analyses definitions and theories of poverty along with their importance in enabling anti-oppressive practice with service users. It goes on to evaluate the Welfare Reform Act 2012 in relation to the negative impact on service users and social workers...

The book explores and explains the relationship between law and ethics in the context of medically related research in order to provide a practical guide to understanding for members of research ethics committees (RECs), professionals involved with medical research and those with an academic interest in the subject.Healthcare Research Ethics and Law sets out the law as it relates to the functions of Research Ethics Committees (RECs) within the context of the process of eth...

Contemporary social work cannot be understood without an appreciation of the broader context of social policy in which it takes place. Such an understanding is increasingly important as social workers are expected to work across institutional, professional and even national boundaries in new ways profoundly affected by the changing global context.This insightful book examines how shifts in the dominant political ideology have affected the nature of welfare provision, the kinds of s...