Joint commissioning has been extensively alluded to in English health and social care policy as a way of improving services and outcomes. Yet there is a lack of specificity pertaining to what joint commissioning actually is and what success would look like. In this paper we adopt a Q methodology...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to set the context for this special issue and provide an introduction to the individual contributions. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a literature survey and analysis. Findings – Integration remains both a central goal and a field of...

Current English health policy is focused on strengthening the ‘demand-side’ of the health care system. Recent reforms are designed to significantly enhance the capability and status of the organisations responsible for commissioning health care services and, in so doing, to address some of...

Purpose – This paper seeks to suggest that there has been little detailed exploration of the potential links between theories of performance and theories of leadership. It aims to argue for an account of leadership which goes beyond current constructivist accounts of sensemaking to one that...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the claims made for the clinical microsystems approach of healthcare improvement within an English NHS context. Design/methodology/approach – The research adopted a Realistic Evaluation approach to examine a series of pilot clinical...