Health Policy and Politics

What is the relationship between politics and health policy in the UK? How are the interests of the medical profession, civil society and the state weighed and balanced in the making of health policy? Health Policy and Politics offers a sophisticated critical analysis of policy-making in the National Health Service. The team of contributors comprises established academics who have been actively involved in both research and policy-making in this field. They examine the 'macro' level of policy-making at governmental level, and then consider professional institutional relationships and struggles, and interpersonal decision-making and power relations within small organizations and departments. Unique in the variety of perspectives and topics covered, the volume will be required reading for those teaching and studying on a range of courses in health, social care and public policy, and for health professionals within the NHS.

Alison Hann is Lecturer in Health Economics and Policy Studies at the School of Health Science, University of Wales, Swansea, UK.

Contents: Introduction, Alison Hann; The impact of the European Union on the NHS, Nick Boyd; The politics of NHS deficits and NHS reform, Calum Paton; Analysing health services decentralisation in the UK, Stephen Peckham, Mark Exworthy, Martin Powell and Ian Greener; Modernising health policy making, Arturo Alvarez-Rosete; Consumerism in health policy: where did it come from and how can it work?, Ian Greener; Choice, voice and the structures of accountability in the new NHS, Susan Pickard; Fixing legitimacy? The case of NICE and the National Health Service, Stephen Harrison and Ruth McDonald; Nothing new under the sun? Regimes of public representation in the English National Health Service: past, present and future, Anna Coleman and Stephen Harrison; 2 cheers for public health, Chris Nottingham; Taking the wait off: an examination of policy networks in a case where local policy was formulated and implemented, to reduce protracted waiting for orthopaedic services, M-L. O'Driscoll; Sleepwalking to diversity?, Gillian Olumide; Politics, ethics and evidence: immunisation and public health policy, Alison Hann and Stephen Peckham; Pharmaceutical policy in the UK, Kathryn Jones; The new general practice contract and reform of primary care in the UK, Alison Hann; Index.