Can private health insurance fill gaps in publicly financed coverage? Does it enhance access to health care or improve efficiency in health service delivery? Will it provide fiscal relief for governments struggling to raise public revenue for health? This book examines the successes, failures and challenges of private health insurance globally through country case studies written by leading national experts. Each case study considers the role of history and politics in shaping private health insurance and determining its impact on health system performance. Despite great diversity in the size and functioning of markets for private health insurance, the book identifies clear patterns across countries, drawing out valuable lessons for policymakers while showing how history and politics have proved a persistent barrier to effective public policy. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a biological mechanism whereby a micro-organism evolves over time to develop the ability to become resistant to antimicrobial therapies such as antibiotics. The drivers of and potential solutions to AMR are complex, often spanning multiple sectors. The internationally recognised response to AMR advocates for a 'One Health' approach, which requires policies to be developed and implemented across human, animal, and environmental health. To date, misaligned economic incentives have slowed the development of novel antimicrobials and limited efforts to reduce antimicrobial usage. However, the research which underpins the variety of policy options to tackle AMR is rapidly evolving across multiple disciplines such as human medicine, veterinary medicine, agricultural sciences, epidemiology, economics, sociology and psychology. By bringing together in one place the latest evidence and analysing the different facets of the complex problem of tackling AMR, this book offers an accessible summary for policy-makers, academics and students on the big questions around AMR policy. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The idea of person-centred health systems is widely advocated in political and policy declarations to better address health system challenges. A person-centred approach is advocated on political, ethical and instrumental grounds and believed to benefit service users, health professionals and the health system more broadly. However, there is continuing debate about the strategies that are available and effective to promote and implement 'person-centred' approaches. This book brings together the world's leading experts in the field to present the evidence base and analyse current challenges and issues. It examines 'person-centredness' from the different roles people take in health systems, as individual service users, care managers, taxpayers or active citizens. The evidence presented will not only provide invaluable policy advice to practitioners and policymakers working on the design and implementation of person-centred health systems but will also be an excellent resource for academics and graduate students researching health systems in Europe. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Hospitals today face a huge number of challenges, including new patterns of disease, rapidly evolving medical technologies, ageing populations and continuing budget constraints. This book is written by clinicians for clinicians and hospital managers, and those who design and operate hospitals. It sets out why hospitals need to change as the patients they treat and the technology to treat them changes. In a series of chapters by leading authorities in their field, it challenges existing models, reviews best practice from many countries and presents clear policy recommendations for policymakers and hospital administrators. It covers the main patient groups and conditions as well as those departments that make modern effective care possible, in imaging and laboratory medicine. Each chapter looks at patient pathways, aspects of workforce, required levels of specialisation and technology, and the opportunities and challenges for optimising the delivery of services in the hospital of the future. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Napoleon's invasion of Russia cost the lives of hundreds of thousands and changed the course of history. Europe had never seen an army quite like the one gathering in Poland in 1812 - half a million men in brilliant uniforms, plumed shakoes and shimmering helmets. Six months later, it was the ghost of an army, frozen and miserable, that limped back to their horrified homes. While the story of this epic military disaster has often been told, it has never been described before from the viewpoint of the tens of thousands of Polish soldiers who took part, and that is why this selection of their vivid eyewitness testimony is of such value. Most of their accounts - letters, diaries and memoirs - have not been translated into English before, and they come from a variety of authors. Some of them were patriots who were keen to wage war on the Russians in order to regain independence for their country. Others were charmed by the glory of Napoleonic warfare or were professional soldiers who did their duty but had seen too much war to be seduced by it. They all tell an unrivalled tale - of muskets and drums and burning villages, of Borodino and Moscow and ruthless battles, and of the numbing hunger and biting cold. By the end the great army had been reduced to a pitiless mob and the Polish soldiers, who had set out with such hope, recalled it with horror.

In July 1798 Napoleon invaded Egypt, landing an army in the stifling heat of a North African summer. His invasion came as a shock to the Egyptians but also as a surprise to the soldiers onboard his armada, for they had not been briefed on a mission designed to win glory for their general and, or so it appeared, untold riches for their government. For these soldiers who followed in Napoleon’s wake, the campaign which followed promised neither fame nor wealth. What it did offer was forced marches, endless battles against fearsome warriors and the occupation of a land which mesmerised and repelled them in equal measure. Thousands of Frenchmen were to die in battle and as many again from disease ‒ including the plague. Somehow, Napoleon managed to parley this costly adventure into a triumph and soon he would become emperor. Though the butcher’s bill was high, the campaign did shake the Ottoman Empire and began Europe’s love affair with Egypt. Jonathan North presents an astonishing history of Napoleon’s early ‘bartering of lives for glory’ based on the words of the soldiers and the many scholars and artists who took part in this exotic campaign.