Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
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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.
Can society be healthy, and how? Is Britain a ‘healthy society’ in the 21st century?
When people ponder health, they usually consider the health of the individual, but individuals co-exist in a social environment so attention should be placed on the health of communities and populations.
Re-examining health, healthcare and societal health using the latest data and research, this book provides a clear, accessible account of the current state of play. Addressing definitions of health in individuals, communities and populations, definitions of society itself, changes in health over time and the contribution of healthcare to health and longevity, it also suggests ways of effectively tackling obstacles to improving health and healthcare in 21st century Britain.
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.
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.
A public health crisis is gripping the UK. Improvements in life expectancy have stalled, health inequalities have widened, obesity and alcohol misuse are placing an increasing strain on health services and urban air pollution is now widely recognised as a serious health hazard. COVID-19 revealed the weaknesses of the UK's public health system, once thought to be among the best in the world.
Against this background, this book examines the organisational and political barriers to an effective public health system showcased through the UK. It urges that what is needed is a new social contract, in which health policy is truly public.
In its 75th anniversary year, this book examines the history, evolution and future of the NHS.
With contributions from leading researchers and experts across a range of fields, such as finance, health policy, primary and secondary care, quality and patient safety, health inequalities and patient and public involvement, it explores the history of the NHS drawing on narrative, evaluative and analytical approaches.
The book frames its analysis around the four key axes from which the NHS has evolved: governance, centralisation and decentralisation, public and private, and professional and managerial.
It will address the salient factors which shape the direction and pace of change in the NHS. As such, the book provides a long-term critical review of the NHS and key themes in health policy.
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.
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made unpaid care more visible through its absence, while also increasing the need for it.
Drawing on a range of research projects covering Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the US, this book documents a broad spectrum of unpaid work performed by residents, relatives, volunteers and staff in nursing homes.
It demonstrates how boundaries between paid and unpaid work are flexible, varying considerably with conditions, time, place and intersectional populations.
By examining the complex labour process within nursing homes, this book provides insight and understanding which will be critical in planning for nursing home care post-pandemic.
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
What does it mean to love a healthcare system?
It is often claimed that the UK population is unusually attached to its National Health Service and the last decade has seen increasingly visible displays of gratitude and love. While social surveys of public attitudes measure how much Britain loves the NHS, this book mobilises new empirical research to ask how Britain loves its NHS.
The answer delves into a series of public practices – such as campaigning, donating and volunteering within NHS organisations – and investigates how attitudes to the NHS shape patient experience of healthcare. Stewart argues that these should be understood as practices of care for, and contestation about the future of, the healthcare system.
This book offers a timely critique of both the potential, and the dysfunctions, of Britain’s complex love affair with the NHS.
What part do the values of growth and prosperity, freedom and justice, security and democracy play in social policy and human welfare? How can we judge the policies offered to us as the recipe for progress?
At a time of global ‘permacrisis’, Sebastian Taylor applies his extensive frontline experience working with health systems and healthcare in the Global North and South to assess the concrete impact of contemporary liberal values on our welfare, development and environmental survival.
Drawing on research from around the world, he uses health as an objective metric to assess how effective these policies are for individuals and society as a whole.
