Purpose – This paper aims to discuss recent contributions to comparative healthcare systems research, which emphasise decentralisation as a major characteristic of Scandinavian hospital systems. Whether the idea of such a “decentralised Scandinavian model” is appropriate and useful, how...

Purpose – The paper aims to account for the substance of non‐linear governance change by analysing the importance of sector‐specific institutions and the pathways of governing they create. Design/methodology/approach – The analysis uses recent reforms of the governance of medical...

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to inquire into how decisions about public fiscal responsibility for pharmaceutical spending are made and justified when there is a lack of coherent, unambiguous and undisputed evidence about the material characteristics of pharmaceutical use....

Purpose – Since the emergence of new public health in the 1970s, health has not merely been considered the absence of disease, but physical, mental and social wellbeing. This article seeks to analyzes the implications of this broad concept of health at an organizational level....

Purpose – The paper seeks to explore whether the development in department management in Norwegian hospitals after the unitary management reform in 2001 constitutes a development in the direction of general management Design/methodology/approach – Interviews were conducted with ten managers...

Purpose – The paper seeks to examine how an online maternity record involving pregnant women worked as a means to create shared maternity care. Design/methodology/approach – Ethnographic techniques have been used. The paper adopts a theoretical/methodological framework based on science and...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the variety of mechanisms applied since 1991 to engage English and Welsh general practitioners (GPs) in local health services planning and implementation. Design/methodology/approach – Three qualitative case studies. Findings – The paper...

Purpose – Outsourcing has been used in Australia as part of the new public management agenda with the aim of increasing efficiency and decreasing costs. In the public health sector its use has been problematic and the purpose of this paper is to explore the largest Australian health contract...

Purpose – The healthcare sector faces new financial and managerial accountability demands, along with their clinical accountability. Various studies show strong opposition by clinicians to new accountability tools, new structures and new ways of working. Less attention is paid to the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is, for English acute NHS hospitals, to investigate how they operate their governance systems in the area of secondary care contracting and identify the key determinants of relationship building within the contacting/commissioning of secondary care focusing...