Medical

The starting point of Ann Oakley's fascinating book is the fracture of her right arm in the grounds of a hotel in the USA. What begins as an accident becomes a journey into some critical themes of modern Western culture: the crisis of embodiment and the perfect self; the confusion between body and identity; the commodification of bodies and body parts; the intrusive surveillance and profiteering of medicine and the law; the problem of ageing; and the identification of women, particularly, with bodies - from the intensely ambiguous two-in-one state of pregnancy to women's later transformation into unproductive, brittle skeletons.

"Fracture" mixes personal experience (the author's and other people's) with 'facts' derived from other literatures, including the history of medicine, neurology, the sociology of health and illness, philosophy, and legal discourses on the right to life and people as victims of a greedy litigation system. The book's genre spans fiction/non-fiction, autobiography and social theory. 

This unique book brings together, for the first time, advocates and critics of the personalisation agenda in English social care services to debate key issues relating to personalisation.

Perspectives from service users, practitioners, academics and policy commentators come together to give an account of the practicalities and controversies associated with the implementation of personalised approaches. The conclusion examines how to make sense of the divergent accounts presented, asking if there is a value-based approach to person-centred care that all sides share.

Written in a lively and accessible way, practitioners, students, policy makers and academics in health and social care, social work, public policy and social policy will appreciate the interplay of rival arguments and the way that ambiguities in the care debate play out as policy ideas take programmatic form.

Where people live matters to their health. Health improvement strategies often target where people live, but do they work? Placing health tackles this question through an examination of England's Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy and its health targets. It evaluates the evidence base for the strategy, compares experiences from the United States and elsewhere in Europe, and illustrates the relevance of complexity theory to area-based health improvement work.

The book brings together these topical issues with a social science analysis of current programmes based on the methods and concepts of complexity thinking. It concludes by setting out how local action based on these ideas offers a new approach to area-based health improvement work.

Placing health is aimed at researchers, academics and students in the social and health sciences with an interest in area-based health improvement work, as well as practitioners in health services, local government and voluntary agencies working on neighbourhood renewal and health projects.

Once regarded as taboo, it is now claimed that we are a death-obsessed society. The face of death in the 21st century, brought about by cultural and demographic change and advances in medical technology, presents health and social care practitioners with new challenges and dilemmas.

By focusing on predominant patterns of dying; global images of death; shifting boundaries between the public and the private; and cultural pluralism, the author looks at the way death is handled in contemporary society and the sensitive ethical and practical dilemmas facing nurses, social workers, doctors and chaplains. This book brings together perspectives from social science, health-care and pastoral theology to assist the reader in understanding and negotiating this 'new death'.

End-of-life care and old age, changing funeral and burial practices, new stigmas such as drug-related bereavements, are highlighted, and theories of dying and bereavement re-examined in their context. The concluding chapters incorporate recent case studies into an exploration of the meanings and shape of holistic and integrated care.

Students interested in death studies from a sociological and cultural viewpoint as well as health and social care practitioners, will benefit from its critical appraisal and application of the established knowledge base to contemporary practices and ethical debates.

UK health and social care are increasingly being asked to work together across traditional agency boundaries. Although this sounds easy in theory, doing it in practice is complicated and difficult. In many cases, moreover, current training programmes, research and textbooks are even more divided than front-line services, and practitioners and managers are often being given the task of making partnerships work without the necessary support.

Against this background, the second edition of this bestselling book provides a concise 'warts and all' introduction to partnership and integration, summarising updated references to current policy and research, setting out useful frameworks and approaches, and helping policy makers and practitioners to work more effectively together, with greater emphasis on ‘integrated care’. Written by the leading authors in the field and fully updated since the Health and Social Care Act 2012, the book is also fully evidence- and research-based, while still being accessible and applicable to everyday practice. Aimed at students, practitioners, managers and policy makers in health and social care, and including new reflective exercises and boxed examples, this is still the one book that everyone in the field should read.

This book shows how living in a highly racialized society affects health through multiple social contexts, including neighborhoods, personal and family relationships, and the medical system.

Black-white disparities in health, illness, and mortality have been widely documented, but most research has focused on single factors that produce and perpetuate those disparities, such as individual health behaviors and access to medical care.

This is the first book to offer a comprehensive perspective on health and sickness among African Americans, starting with an examination of how race has been historically constructed in the US and in the medical system and the resilience of racial ideologies and practices. Racial disparities in health reflect racial inequalities in living conditions, incarceration rates, family systems, and opportunities. These racial disparities often cut across social class boundaries and have gender-specific consequences.

Bringing together data from existing quantitative and qualitative research with new archival and interview data, this book advances research in the fields of families, race-ethnicity, and medical sociology.

This book shows how living in a highly racialized society affects health through multiple social contexts, including neighborhoods, personal and family relationships, and the medical system.

Black-white disparities in health, illness, and mortality have been widely documented, but most research has focused on single factors that produce and perpetuate those disparities, such as individual health behaviors and access to medical care.

This is the first book to offer a comprehensive perspective on health and sickness among African Americans, starting with an examination of how race has been historically constructed in the US and in the medical system and the resilience of racial ideologies and practices. Racial disparities in health reflect racial inequalities in living conditions, incarceration rates, family systems, and opportunities. These racial disparities often cut across social class boundaries and have gender-specific consequences.

Bringing together data from existing quantitative and qualitative research with new archival and interview data, this book advances research in the fields of families, race-ethnicity, and medical sociology.

Health policy thinking must change. This book explores the fundamental currents and tensions that lie behind recent trends such as shared decision-making, co-production, and personalisation.

These are often discussed in relation to an epidemiological transition but this text argues that they embody a philosophical transition – a change in our conceptions of healthcare and of appropriate forms of knowledge and analysis. As clinical concerns are increasingly nested within social concerns then policy analysis must engage with the multiple philosophical tensions that are now centre stage.

This focus on key underlying ideas and tensions in healthcare couldn’t have come at a better time. With international relevance, the book’s arguments help fuel a shift away from a ‘delivery’ model towards a more deliberative model of healthcare.

Does health promotion have a lasting and positive effect on people?

With mounting pressure to reduce costs to the NHS and increasing scepticism of the so-called nanny state, health promotion initiatives are increasingly being criticised as costly and ineffective, with many arguing that health inequalities can only be reduced through radical political and economic change.

This book examines the methods used to evaluate the value of health promotion projects and determines whether attempts to change people’s lifestyles have proved successful. Taking into account the practical and ethical issues involved in deciding the appropriate approach to take in efforts to reduce health inequalities, the book assesses what might be the best path forward for health promotion.

This book provides an applied, interdisciplinary approach to an understanding of the key social determinants of health, essential at a time of increasing inequalities and reductions in existing NHS services and local authority budgets.

A person's health and wellbeing is influenced by a spectrum of socioeconomic, cultural, living and working conditions, social and community networks and lifestyle choices. Based on the 'rainbow model' of the social determinants of health, chapters from experts in a wide range of disciplines examine the key factors which can lead to poor quality of life, homelessness and reduced mortality.

Featuring practitioner, academic and commentator experiences, and clear case studies, this book will enable researchers, front-line workers, managers, service commissioners and politicians to identify and employ the most appropriate health, social and economic interventions to support those at the edge of the community, and the promotion of their inclusion in society.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the NHS reforms ushered in by UK Coalition Government under the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, arguably the most extensive reforms ever introduced in the NHS.

Contributions from leading researchers from the UK, the US and New Zealand examine the reforms in the contexts of national health policy, commissioning and service provision, governance and others. Collectively, the chapters presents a broader assessment of the trajectory of health reforms in the context of marketisation, the rise of health consumerism and the revelation of medical scandals.

This is essential reading for those studying the NHS, those who work in it, and those who seek to gain a better understanding of this key public service.

Health policy thinking must change. This book explores the fundamental currents and tensions that lie behind recent trends such as shared decision-making, co-production, and personalisation.

These are often discussed in relation to an epidemiological transition but this text argues that they embody a philosophical transition – a change in our conceptions of healthcare and of appropriate forms of knowledge and analysis. As clinical concerns are increasingly nested within social concerns then policy analysis must engage with the multiple philosophical tensions that are now centre stage.

This focus on key underlying ideas and tensions in healthcare couldn’t have come at a better time. With international relevance, the book’s arguments help fuel a shift away from a ‘delivery’ model towards a more deliberative model of healthcare.

HIGHLY COMMENDED IN THE BMA BOOK AWARDS 2017

Americans live three years less than their counterparts in France or Sweden. Scottish men survive two years less than English men. Across Europe, women in the poorest communities live up to ten years less than those in the richest. Revealing gaps in life expectancy of up to 25 years between places just a few miles apart, this important book demonstrates that where you live can kill you.

Clare Bambra, a leading expert in public health, draws on case studies from across the globe to examine the social, environmental, economic and political causes of these health inequalities, how they have evolved over time and what they are like today.

Bambra concludes by considering how health divides might develop in the future and what should be done, so that where you live is not a matter of life and death.

Danny Dorling provides a foreword.

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the NHS reforms ushered in by UK Coalition Government under the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, arguably the most extensive reforms ever introduced in the NHS.

Contributions from leading researchers from the UK, the US and New Zealand examine the reforms in the contexts of national health policy, commissioning and service provision, governance and others. Collectively, the chapters presents a broader assessment of the trajectory of health reforms in the context of marketisation, the rise of health consumerism and the revelation of medical scandals.

This is essential reading for those studying the NHS, those who work in it, and those who seek to gain a better understanding of this key public service.

This book provides an applied, interdisciplinary approach to an understanding of the key social determinants of health, essential at a time of increasing inequalities and reductions in existing NHS services and local authority budgets.

A person's health and wellbeing is influenced by a spectrum of socioeconomic, cultural, living and working conditions, social and community networks and lifestyle choices. Based on the 'rainbow model' of the social determinants of health, chapters from experts in a wide range of disciplines examine the key factors which can lead to poor quality of life, homelessness and reduced mortality.

Featuring practitioner, academic and commentator experiences, and clear case studies, this book will enable researchers, front-line workers, managers, service commissioners and politicians to identify and employ the most appropriate health, social and economic interventions to support those at the edge of the community, and the promotion of their inclusion in society.

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.

Drawing on eight years of research, expert researchers in the field analyse crucial aspects of commissioning, including competition and cooperation, the development of Clinical Commissioning Groups and contractual mechanisms. They also consider the influence of recent commissioning reforms on public health infrastructure.

For academics and policy makers in health services research and policy, this is a valuable collection of evidence that deepens understanding of how commissioning works.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. How has austerity impacted on health and wellbeing in the UK? Health in Hard Times explores its repercussions for social inequalities in health.

The result of five years of research, the book draws on a case study of Stockton-on-Tees in the north-east of England, home to some of the starkest health divides. By placing individual and local experiences in the context of national budget cuts and welfare reforms, it provides a holistic perspective on countrywide inequalities.

Edited by a leading expert, this is an important book for anyone seeking to understand one of today’s most significant determinants of health.

As a field, health and social care is facing considerable challenge and debate, in the UK and internationally. This clear and succinct text offers a valuable introductory guide to this multidisciplinary subject, helping people who want to study or work in health and social care understand why these services matter, how they have developed and how they work. Framed by vital historical and social policy context, the book considers:

· The social context in which health and social care are delivered

· The history and nature of current services

· Organising, funding and delivering services

· How to be a professional in practice

Including chapter summaries and links to further reading, this text will be invaluable to undergraduate students on programmes in Health and Social Care, Social Work, Nursing, Allied Health Professions, Social Policy and related applied social science subjects, as well as to A-level and Foundation programmes prior to University.

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.

Drawing on eight years of research, expert researchers in the field analyse crucial aspects of commissioning, including competition and cooperation, the development of Clinical Commissioning Groups and contractual mechanisms. They also consider the influence of recent commissioning reforms on public health infrastructure.

For academics and policy makers in health services research and policy, this is a valuable collection of evidence that deepens understanding of how commissioning works.

As many social inequalities widen, this is a crucial survey of local authorities’ evolving role in health, social care and wellbeing.

Health and social and public policy experts review structural changes in provision and procurement, and explore social determinants of health including intergenerational needs and housing. With detailed assessments of regional disparities and case studies of effective strategies and interventions from local authorities, this collaborative study addresses complex issues (Wicked Issues), considers where responsibility for wellbeing lies and points the way to future policy-making.

The Centre for Partnering (CfP) is a key outcome of this innovative review along with Bonner’s previous work Social Determinants of Health (2017).

What social factors contribute to the tragic state of health care in Africa?

Focusing on East African societies, this book is the first to investigate what role religion plays in health care in African cultures. Taking into 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.

Informed by existing related studies, and on-the-ground interviews with individuals and organizations in Uganda, Mozambique and Ethiopia, this interdisciplinary book will form an invaluable resource for scholars seeking to better understand the links between society, multi-level state instruments, and health care in East Africa.

Health care support workers (HSWs) play a fundamental role in international health care systems, and yet they remain largely invisible. Despite this, the number of HSWs is growing fast as governments strive to combat illness and address social care issues in a world of finite resources.

This original collection analyses the global experience of HSWs in the UK, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Portugal, Sweden and The Netherlands. Leading academics examine issues including the interface of HSWs with the health professions, regulatory practice risks, employment challenges and the dilemmas of an ageing population. Crucial future policy recommendations are also made for a world becoming increasingly dependent on HSWs.

The allied health professions have gained legitimacy through the pursuit of research evidence and the standardisation of practice. Yet there remains very little analysis or understanding of these professions.

Adopting theory from the sociology of health professions, this unique text explores the sociological, economic, political and philosophical pressures that have shaped the professions. Drawing on case studies and examples from occupations including optometrists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists to emerging vocations, including pedorthists and allied health assistants, this book offers an innovative comparison of allied health professions in Australia and Britain.

By telling the story of their past, this original book prepares the allied health professions for a new and different future.

As many social inequalities widen, this is a crucial survey of local authorities’ evolving role in health, social care and wellbeing.

Health and social and public policy experts review structural changes in provision and procurement, and explore social determinants of health including intergenerational needs and housing. With detailed assessments of regional disparities and case studies of effective strategies and interventions from local authorities, this collaborative study addresses complex issues (Wicked Issues), considers where responsibility for wellbeing lies and points the way to future policy-making.

The Centre for Partnering (CfP) is a key outcome of this innovative review along with Bonner’s previous work Social Determinants of Health (2017).

Winner of the 2022 Cheryl Frank Memorial Prize.

Critical realism, as a toolkit of practical ideas, helps researchers to extend and clarify their analyses. It resolves problems arising from splits between different research approaches, builds on the strengths of different methods and overcomes their individual limitations.

This original text draws on international examples of health and illness research across the life course, from small studies to large trials, to show how versatile critical realism can be in validating research and connecting it to policy and practice.

To meet growing demand from students and researchers, this book is based on the course at UCL, first taught by Roy Bhaskar, the founder of critical realism.

Winner of the 2022 Cheryl Frank Memorial Prize.

Critical realism, as a toolkit of practical ideas, helps researchers to extend and clarify their analyses. It resolves problems arising from splits between different research approaches, builds on the strengths of different methods and overcomes their individual limitations.

This original text draws on international examples of health and illness research across the life course, from small studies to large trials, to show how versatile critical realism can be in validating research and connecting it to policy and practice.

To meet growing demand from students and researchers, this book is based on the course at UCL, first taught by Roy Bhaskar, the founder of critical realism.

Adult social care was the first major social policy domain in England to be transferred from the state to the market. There is now a forty-year period to look back at to consider the thinking behind the strategy, the impacts on commissioners and providers of care, on the care workforce and on those who use care and support services.

In this book, Bob Hudson meticulously charts these shifts. He challenges the dominant market paradigm, explores alternative models for a post-Covid-19 future and locates the debate within the wider literature on political thinking and policy change.

This timely comparative study assesses the role of medical doctors in reforming publicly funded health services in England and Canada.

Respected authors from health and legal backgrounds on both sides of the Atlantic consider how the high status of the profession uniquely influences reforms. With summaries of developments in models of care, and the participation of doctors since the inception of publicly funded healthcare systems, they ask whether professionals might be considered allies or enemies of policy-makers.

With insights for future health policy and research, the book is an important contribution to debates about the complex relationship between doctors and the systems in which they practice.

Rated as a top 10 book about the COVID-19 pandemic by New Statesman: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2021/07/best-books-about-covid-19-pandemic

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC- ND

It has been claimed that we are ‘all in it together’ and that the COVID-19 virus ‘does not discriminate’.

This accessible, yet authoritative book dispels this myth of COVID-19 as an ‘equal opportunity’ disease, by showing how the pandemic is a syndemic of disease and inequality.

Drawing on international data and accounts, it argues that the pandemic is unequal in three ways: it has killed unequally, been experienced unequally and will impoverish unequally.

These inequalities are a political choice: with governments effectively choosing who lives and who dies, we need to learn from COVID-19 quickly to prevent growing inequality and to reduce health inequalities in the future.

COVID-19 is an unequal pandemic.

Adult social care was the first major social policy domain in England to be transferred from the state to the market. There is now a forty-year period to look back at to consider the thinking behind the strategy, the impacts on commissioners and providers of care, on the care workforce and on those who use care and support services.

In this book, Bob Hudson meticulously charts these shifts. He challenges the dominant market paradigm, explores alternative models for a post-Covid-19 future and locates the debate within the wider literature on political thinking and policy change.

Deficiencies in old age care are some of the most pressing human rights concerns in mature welfare states.

This book radically challenges the ethics of viewing care as a tradeable commodity and introduces a novel framework for understanding and analysing social care through the concept of ailment. Providing examples from the British and Finnish welfare states, it demonstrates how ailment shapes societies from the micro to the macro level. Addressing the marketisation and financialisation of care, the authors bring to light increasing inequalities in care.

This book argues that ailment is part of human life and society, and therefore the politics of care should begin with a politics of ailment.

Health services are among the most expensive and complex areas of social policy.

Using qualitative comparative analysis to explore 11 developed countries’ health services, this volume considers the links between a range of different outcome measures and levels of funding, social determinants and different types of health expenditures. It also reflects on how those systems responded to the first wave of COVID-19.

This ambitious text identifies which underpinning factors are associated with the strongest outcomes, providing a rigorous account of health systems and health policies in the context of their wider economies and societies.

Health services are among the most expensive and complex areas of social policy.

Using qualitative comparative analysis to explore 11 developed countries’ health services, this volume considers the links between a range of different outcome measures and levels of funding, social determinants and different types of health expenditures. It also reflects on how those systems responded to the first wave of COVID-19.

This ambitious text identifies which underpinning factors are associated with the strongest outcomes, providing a rigorous account of health systems and health policies in the context of their wider economies and societies.

Health and wellbeing are significantly influenced by how professionals plan, design and manage the environment.

This book supports those working in the built environment and public health sectors, with the knowledge and insight to maximise health improvement through planning and land use decisions. Supported by examples of policy and approaches, it focuses on implementation and delivery, and sets out what is needed to achieve healthier environments within the parameters of legislative and policy frameworks.

It demonstrates how when we harness the art and science of public health spatial planning, can we begin to effect changes to the policies and decisions that shape population health.

Health and socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have been exacerbated by central government-imposed austerity budgeting by local authorities and the health service.

This book, part of the Social Determinants of Health series, extends the ideas developed in the previous volumes by reviewing the impact of COVID-19 on local and national governance from the perspectives of public health, social care and economic development.

Drawing on case studies from across the UK and beyond, it explores the pandemic and other ‘wicked’ issues including climate change, homelessness, unemployment and domestic abuse through the lens of relationalism, and proposes necessary system changes.

What lies behind England’s crisis in adult social care, why has real change been so hard and what can be done?

Ensuring effective, sustainable and affordable care and support for people of all ages is an urgent public policy challenge. This vital book outlines a different vision of social care as an essential part of the country’s economic and social infrastructure that enables people to live good lives.

Drawing on the history of social care, international comparisons and lived experience, it sets out a different road to reform that will secure political traction and public support for change.

Health and socio-economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have been exacerbated by central government-imposed austerity budgeting by local authorities and the health service.

This book, part of the Social Determinants of Health series, extends the ideas developed in the previous volumes by reviewing the impact of COVID-19 on local and national governance from the perspectives of public health, social care and economic development.

Drawing on case studies from across the UK and beyond, it explores the pandemic and other ‘wicked’ issues including climate change, homelessness, unemployment and domestic abuse through the lens of relationalism, and proposes necessary system changes.

Richard Titmuss was one of the 20th century's foremost social policy theorists. This accessible Reader is the first compendium of his work on public health, health promotion and health inequalities.

Most of Titmuss's work has been out of print for many years. This volume, like its predecessor, Welfare and wellbeing (The Policy Press, 2001), is important in bringing the work of this highly influential thinker to the attention of a new generation of social policy students and policy makers. It also enhances current debates about how complex societies can best provide for the health of all their citizens.

The past 30 years have seen risk become a major field of study, most recently with the COVID-19 pandemic positioning it at the centre of public awareness, yet there is limited understanding of how risk can and should be used in policy making.

This book provides an accessible guide to the key elements of risk in policy making, including its role in rhetoric to legitimise decisions and choices.

Using risk as a framework, it examines how policy makers in a range of countries responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and explains why some were more successful than others.

Based on a comparative study covering 15 Western European countries, this edited volume examines the responses of long-term care homes for older people to the COVID-19 pandemic.

It analyses the preparedness of governments and residences and the structural weaknesses revealed and exacerbated by the crisis, such as staff shortages, the precariousness of employment in the sector, and the deficient coordination between the health and caring sectors.

By examining the governance structures of the care home sector and their performance before and during the crisis, the book highlights the institutional, organisational, and management challenges facing care homes, both in continuing to provide services to an increasingly ageing population and in the event of future public health crises.

Written by a well-respected health and public policy expert, this book provides a comprehensive exploration of the under-appreciated role of public health policy in the United States’ medical care industry.

The book offers students:

• an introduction to the fundamentals of health policy, with comparative perspectives from other countries;

• analysis of major health care programmes, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and regulatory programs;

• reflections on issues around access, quality, cost, and the ethics of provision.

By drawing comparisons between the US and other countries, it deepens our understanding of health policy in the US, where it is headed next, and what it might learn from other systems.

Written by a well-respected health and public policy expert, this book provides a comprehensive exploration of the under-appreciated role of public health policy in the United States’ medical care industry.

The book offers students:

• an introduction to the fundamentals of health policy, with comparative perspectives from other countries;

• analysis of major health care programmes, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and regulatory programs;

• reflections on issues around access, quality, cost, and the ethics of provision.

By drawing comparisons between the US and other countries, it deepens our understanding of health policy in the US, where it is headed next, and what it might learn from other systems.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-ND licence.

This book explores the concept of public trust in health systems.

In the context of recent events, including public response to interventions to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccination uptake and the use of health data and digital health, this important book uses empirical evidence to address why public trust is vital to a well-functioning health system.

In doing so, it provides a comprehensive contemporary explanation of public trust, how it affects health systems and how it can be nurtured and maintained as an integral component of health system governance.

The past 30 years have seen risk become a major field of study, most recently with the COVID-19 pandemic positioning it at the centre of public awareness, yet there is limited understanding of how risk can and should be used in policy making.

This book provides an accessible guide to the key elements of risk in policy making, including its role in rhetoric to legitimise decisions and choices.

Using risk as a framework, it examines how policy makers in a range of countries responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and explains why some were more successful than others.

Since the 1960s, a major mental health crisis has emerged among Western working populations. By analysing the development of various occupational cultures and using extensive data sources, this book captures the history of mental vulnerability in working life.

Through a study spanning several decades, the book develops a new understanding of how mental vulnerability has evolved through changes to our working lives and socio-cultural being. It shows how our current knowledge about work, disability and the psyche is influenced by our time and provides intertwining conceptual frameworks and alternatives to current canonised knowledge about mental health in working life.

Since the 1960s, a major mental health crisis has emerged among Western working populations. By analysing the development of various occupational cultures and using extensive data sources, this book captures the history of mental vulnerability in working life.

Through a study spanning several decades, the book develops a new understanding of how mental vulnerability has evolved through changes to our working lives and socio-cultural being. It shows how our current knowledge about work, disability and the psyche is influenced by our time and provides intertwining conceptual frameworks and alternatives to current canonised knowledge about mental health in working life.

Wellbeing is a hot topic: governments, psychologists and a thousand self-appointed ‘experts’ all claim to promote it and yet our societies are experiencing record levels of mental distress and ill-health. Why?

Matthew Fisher presents a compelling new perspective on psychological wellbeing informed by evidence on human stress responses. He shows how our mental health is shaped by the social and cultural conditions in which we all live.

Developing arguments and strategies for a society truly committed to wellbeing, this book offers new ways to understand the problems facing modern societies and ways to respond through political and social change.

In a world facing multiple intersecting crises, the push for healthier, more resilient societies has never been more urgent. This timely book reveals how empowered and organised communities can lead this change. It offers policy makers, academics, and activists research-driven insights, decolonial perspectives and real-world examples of organising and collective actions from across the global North and South.

By centring on the power of community development, participation, and social movements, the book delivers actionable frameworks to tackle inequality and advance the right to health, making it an essential resource for anyone committed to health justice and for building equitable and sustainable health systems worldwide.

Wellbeing is a hot topic: governments, psychologists and a thousand self-appointed ‘experts’ all claim to promote it and yet our societies are experiencing record levels of mental distress and ill-health. Why?

Matthew Fisher presents a compelling new perspective on psychological wellbeing informed by evidence on human stress responses. He shows how our mental health is shaped by the social and cultural conditions in which we all live.

Developing arguments and strategies for a society truly committed to wellbeing, this book offers new ways to understand the problems facing modern societies and ways to respond through political and social change.

Are you a health and social care commissioner navigating the ever-changing commissioning landscape? With challenges such as limited funding, changing demands and global pandemics, we need to be clear on why, what and how we commission effectively.

This book offers you a warm welcome into the often-complex world of healthcare commissioning. Amanda J. Hughes shares personal insights from her commissioning career and practical guidance that will demystify the commissioning cycle and ease the journey as you strive to achieve the best outcomes for the population.

This book will help you to ensure valuable resources are directed to those with most need, that care is fair and accessible and that the solutions you put into place are sustainable for the longer term.

In a world facing multiple intersecting crises, the push for healthier, more resilient societies has never been more urgent. This timely book reveals how empowered and organised communities can lead this change. It offers policy makers, academics, and activists research-driven insights, decolonial perspectives and real-world examples of organising and collective actions from across the global North and South.

By centring on the power of community development, participation, and social movements, the book delivers actionable frameworks to tackle inequality and advance the right to health, making it an essential resource for anyone committed to health justice and for building equitable and sustainable health systems worldwide.

Three decades of neoliberal efficiency thinking about caring and care systems have resulted in a greater need for relationality in healthcare and social work than ever before. These support services extend beyond the giving of care and support to include the development of relationships between caregivers and their care recipients in their socio-institutional contexts.

The culmination of over 30 years of research, this book provides an extensive and critical introduction to relational working in care, education and welfare. It explains what relational work is and proposes a new, human-orientated theory beyond the simple needs provision model. Demonstrating the kind of professionalism required for such work, it explores why it is as important to be present with and for people, especially those in precarious conditions, as it is to give care.

This is essential reading for researchers, educators, quality officers, policy makers, students and practitioners interested in understanding the growing scholarship related to both care theory and presence theory.

This book explores the critical issue of how to manage the ever-increasing demand for social care in Britain’s ageing society. With informal care from family members and friends now the dominant form of adult social care in the UK, this precarious system is struggling to provide enough support.

Exploring the relationship between formal and informal care, this book develops ideas for a ‘caring economy’, showing the potential to integrate paid-for and unpaid care within a framework of solidarity based on the strengths of the community, working to improve the quality and quantity of state-funded care provision while sharing unpaid support more widely as a community responsibility.