This paper reports findings from an ethnographic study that explored how market-based policies were implemented in one local health economy in England. We identified a number of coping strategies employed by local agents in response to multiple, rapidly changing and often contradictory central...

This paper reports from an ethnographic study of hospital planning in England undertaken between 2006 and 2009. We explored how a policy to centralise hospital services was espoused in national policy documents, how this shifted over time and how it was translated in practice. We found that...

Decentralisation has returned as a key theme in English health policy in recent years in policies such as Patient Choice and Foundation Trusts, among many others. The goal of these policies appears to be to stimulate self-sustaining incentives to continuous organisational reform and performance...

Objectives In many healthcare systems of affluent countries, general practitioners (GPs) are encouraged to work in collaborative arrangements to increase patients' accessibility and the quality of care. There are two lines of thought regarding the ways in which belonging to a network can affect...

Many public health systems in high- and middle-income countries are under increasing financial pressures as a result of ageing populations, a rise in chronic and non-communicable diseases and shrinking public resources. At the same time the rise in patient mobility and concomitant market in...