MEDICAL / Health Policy

Recent urban disturbances, concerns about the fate of asylum seekers and renewed debates about the nature of ethnic identity and citizenship have all combined to give ethnic differences a high public and policy profile. This book explores the diverse experiences of ethnic disadvantage and challenges common assumptions.

The NHS and Community Care Act (1990) specifically emphasises the health and social care needs of disabled people from minority ethnic communities, urging local authorities to be culturally sensitive to individual needs. This report examines what a culturally sensitive service looks like from the users' perspective.

This book summarises and builds on current knowledge and research about direct payments in the UK and considers developments in other European countries. It identifies good practice in the area and explores the implications of direct payments, both for service users and for social work staff.

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 report investigates the circumstances, needs, views and life experiences of black young people with caring responsibilities. It highlights significant gaps in service provision, which result in young people undertaking caring responsibilities, and makes recommendations to improve services.

This book provides a rigorous and challenging review of recent research in the realms of communication and cultural diversity. Focusing on health communication interventions concerning service users who may lack fluency in English, it shows that meeting the needs of all health service users depends on both structures and processes of communication.

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.

As the prospect of a legal right to advocacy inches closer, so the need to scrutinise its key values and practices becomes urgent. Although widely acclaimed as a 'good thing', there is little agreement as to how advocacy should be implemented, funded or evaluated. This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the benefits of advocacy.

The government's NHS Plan emphasises the importance of services users' views. This report provides practical guidance on how to ensure that older people's views are heard, acted on, and monitored, in relation to service quality. It makes recommendations for ensuring that older people's views become an integral part of home care service provision.

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 examines the relationship between health and domestic violence. In a qualitative study of the attitudes of health professionals and the women with whom they come into contact, it gives voice to a range of issues which urgently need to be addressed providing guidance for training and practice, as well as recommendations for policy makers.

This challenging book analyses the development of anti-racist social work education and training. It critically assesses the concept of 'race', offers an historical exploration of the role of social work and provides an assessment of the backlash against the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work's anti-racist developments.