Health Care

As the population ages, this book reveals how divides that are apparent through childhood and working life change and are added to in later life.

This timely book is the most comprehensive account yet of recent commissioning practice in the English NHS and its impact on health services and the healthcare system.

From scarcer resources to greater stresses, this book charts how policies and cuts have compromised workers’ ability to undertake their professional roles. Combining research and practice experience, it assesses the extent of de-professionalisation in recent years, and how workers have responded.

This comprehensive handbook provides an invaluable overview of current international thinking about health literacy, highlighting cutting edge research, policy and practice in the field. Providing a wide range of major findings, the book outlines current discourse in the field and examines necessary future dialogues and new perspectives.

This book critiques the popular claim that ‘more information’ equates to ‘better health’ and explores the potential challenges related to people’s changing relationships with traditional health systems as access to, and control over data shifts.

Setting out both new empirical material and new conceptual terrain, this book draws on approaches from human geography, social policy, feminist and political theory to explore issues of home and care in times of crisis.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book is a vital review of the impact of austerity on the wellbeing of the UK. Case studies from Stockton-on-Tees, home to some of the starkest health divides, are combined with a review of the repercussions of budget cuts and welfare reforms to show the vast inequalities in health in the UK today.

This book explores what it means to act in a democratic way and provides practical guidance which will help public service professionals ensure users are at the centre of public services delivery, drawing from examples of different public services around the world.

Bringing together accounts of how intellectual disability was viewed, managed and experienced in countries across the globe, the book examines the origins and nature of contemporary attitudes, policy and practice and sheds light on the challenges of implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCPRD).

This clear and succinct text offers a valuable introductory guide to health and social care, helping people who want to study or work in the field understand why these services matter, how they have developed and how they work.

This book is the first to investigate what role religion plays in health care in East Africa. Taking in to account the geopolitical and economic environments of the region, the authors examine the roles played by individual and group beliefs, government policies, and pressure from the Millennium Development Goals in affecting health outcomes.

Based on ethnographic research conducted over a year, this book tells the story of twelve people, each living with illness. Focusing on everyday life, it explores ideas of care, vulnerability and choice. Juxtaposing text with illustrations, the book highlights the intimacies of visual sociology and demonstrates the value of sensuous scholarship.