At a time when health and social care services in European countries are under pressure to contain or cut costs, informal carers are relied upon as the main providers of long-term care. However, still little is known about the availability of direct and indirect support for informal carers...

EU Health policy exemplifies the philosophical tension between EC economic freedoms and social policy. EC competition law, like other internal market rules, could restrict national health policy options despite the subsidiarity principle. In particular, European health system reforms that...

Policies to expand the traditional role of community pharmacists have been implemented or at least considered in a number of countries, as advocated by academics, professional organizations, and governments. Such reforms come on the heel of pressing system-wide challenges. At a time of growing...

The persistence of socioeconomic inequalities in health is a major policy concern in England, which was addressed by the new labour government in 1997 which prioritised curtailing health inequalities as a policy goal. This paper addresses two related questions: first, it empirically examines the...

There is a widely discussed problem of publication bias in medical and health services research. Where quantitative effects form the basis of a publication a ‘winner's curse’ curse may apply. This phenomenon may occur as prospective authors of research papers compete by reporting ‘more...