Regulating Medical Work: Formal and Informal Controls (Health Services Management) - Softcover

ALLSOP

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0335194044 ISBN 13: 9780335194049

Publisher: Open University Press, 1996

Synopsis

This book examines the formal and informal regulation of medical work in the British health service. It asks what regulation is for, what systems of rules control medical work and how they are used in practice. Following a general chapter which sets out the principles, theories and concepts associated with regulation, subsequent chapters examine in detail various regulatory forms. Two major issues are explored. First, the book looks at the boundaries between state-sanctioned self regulation and other regulatory systems. Second, it assesses the relationship between formal controls such as regulation and accreditation and informal controls through peer review and social networks.

The thesis of the book is that the web of formal and informal controls over medical work is expanding in a variety of ways. Increased controls are being exercised by government, by the profession itself and by lay people as patients, citizens and complainants. Furthermore, the NHS reforms have brought new managerial controls. In particular, doctors and managers have been encouraged to set standards to guide performance. As a consequence, the boundaries of control over medical knowledge are being redrawn and new alliances are developing between the stakeholders in health care: government, citizens, managers and professionals.

Regulating Medical Work is an accessible, up-to-date text for those working in the NHS, for students of health policy and public administration and for all social scientists interested in medical work. It draws on recent research and provides indicative examples and cases to illustrate points in the text.

About this title

About the Author

Judith Allsop is Professor of Health Policy at South Bank University. She has researched and written a number of books and articles on aspects of health policy. These include Health Policy and the NHS and its sequel Health Policy and the NHS: towards 2000. She has also researched user issues in healthcare and particularly complaint behaviour. She has been variously, a Chair of a Family Practitioner Committee; vice chair of a District Health Authority and member of a Special Health Authority. She was a member of the Wilson committee which reviewed NHS complaint systems and was a member of the Citizen's Charter Unit Complaints Task Force.Linda Mulcahy is the Lawford Reader in Public Law at the University of North London. She has researched and published on disputing behaviour and complaints in a health care setting. Recently, she has conducted a two-year study of the impact of complaints on consultants in one region and a study of dissatisfaction for the Wilson Committee. She is currently evaluating a Department of Health pilot mediation scheme for medical negligence cases.

Edition details

• Publisher: Open University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0335194044
• ISBN 13: 9780335194049
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240