Health and social care

This book's striking message is that palliative care does not deliver on its aims to value people who are dying and make death and dying a natural part of life. Applying Social Role Valorisation, it argues for the de-institutionalisation of palliative care and recommends an alternative framework to current approaches.

Cultures of care uses an innovative biographical case study approach to compare caring situations and caring strategies in Britain and East and West Germany. The findings underline the significance of caring within social policy agendas and the need to change the parameters of comparative social policy.

This book renews the collective compact that created our public services in the 1940s using voices from service users and service providers. Sections explore long-term conditions, service redesign, information technology, leadership, co-production and quality.

In examining how our identity shapes the knowledge we produce, Mental health service users in research considers ways of 'doing research' which bring multiple understandings together effectively, and explains the sociological use of autobiography and its relevance.

This study focuses on the contribution that studies of the post-war 'welfare state' can make to debates about welfare. Drawing on community care debates from 1971 to 1993, it illuminates contemporary concerns about issues as rationing care, the health and social care divide, residential care and growing emphasis on provider competition.

This research and practice based book considers the social meaning of women’s alcohol use and its treatment, raising concerns about the political role of ‘treatment’ in making women behave, or to be ‘well’. It challenges current policy and practice in the field, and aims to develop a new approach to women’s drinking.

This book examines the contribution of the NHS to the multi-agency and inter-professional child protection process. It examines the roles played by health professionals within child protection and investigates the nature and operation of the central policy community and local provider networks.

With moves towards greater integration of health and social care services, there is a need for improved understanding of the importance of a person-centred, holistic approach to these fields. This accessible text provides readers across the health and social care professions with a guide to understanding the value of this approach.

Through the framework of understanding health inequalities as a 'wicked problem' the book develops an applied approach to researching, understanding and addressing these by drawing on complexity theory.

In this wide-ranging book, Marian Barnes argues for care as an essential value in private lives and public policies, considering the importance of care to well-being and social justice and applying insights from feminist care ethics to care work, and care within personal relationships.

In the context of global ageing societies, there are few challenges to the underlying assumption that policies should promote functional health and independence in older people and contain the costs of care. This important book provides such a challenge.

This is the first comprehensive text on commissioning for health and social care taking students, practitioners and managers through key stages of the commissioning cycle as well as addressing cross-cutting themes.