With economic winter facing many healthcare and health education budgets, the high costs of medical education are bringing it under close scrutiny. However, the costs of not providing high quality medical education - not least human costs in morbidity and mortality from medical error - are also high, presenting medical educators, funding managers, policy makers and economists with an unenviable dilemma. To add to their difficulties, remarkably little has been written on cost effectiveness in medical education, including how to calculate costs, how to get maximal value for money and even what constitutes value for money. In this book, the first of its kind, world leading experts comprehensively outline what is known about cost effectiveness in each of their fields. Undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional education are all explored, as are e-learning, simulation, cost benefit analysis and numerous other areas. Lecturers and researchers in medical education, clinical tutors and educational supervisors and appraisers, managers responsible for funding medical education and health economists and health policy makers and shapers will find this an invaluable resource. 'An excellent analysis and explanation of an under-explored subject' - from the Foreword by Sir Liam Donaldson

This book examines how child protection law has been shaped by the transition to late modernity and how it copes with the ever-changing concept of risk. The book traces the evolution of the contemporary child protection system through historical changes, assessing the factors that have influenced the development of legal responses to abuse over a 130-year period. It does so by focussing on the Republic of Ireland where child protection has become emblematic of wider social change. The work draws on a wide range of primary and secondary sources including legislation, case law and official and media reports of child protection inquiries. It also utilises insights developed through an extensive examination of parliamentary debates on child protection matters. These materials are assessed through the lens of critical discourse analysis to explore the relationship between law, social policy and social theory as they effect child protection. While the book utilises primarily Irish sources, this multidisciplinary approach ensures the argument has international applicability. The book will be a valuable resource for all those with an interest in the development of child protection law.

This book examines how child protection law has been shaped by the transition to late modernity and how it copes with the ever-changing concept of risk. The book traces the evolution of the contemporary child protection system through historical changes, assessing the factors that have influenced the development of legal responses to abuse over a 130-year period. It does so by focussing on the Republic of Ireland where child protection has become emblematic of wider social change. The work draws on a wide range of primary and secondary sources including legislation, case law and official and media reports of child protection inquiries. It also utilises insights developed through an extensive examination of parliamentary debates on child protection matters. These materials are assessed through the lens of critical discourse analysis to explore the relationship between law, social policy and social theory as they effect child protection. While the book utilises primarily Irish sources, this multidisciplinary approach ensures the argument has international applicability. The book will be a valuable resource for all those with an interest in the development of child protection law.

This fascinating guide to medical education introduces readers to the historical development of this important subject through 100 powerful images from the prestigious Wellcome Library Collection that highlight key figures in the field and innovations that have taken place, not just in the recent past but over the centuries. The text that accompanies each image both describes that image and shows how the ideas arising from it have helped to shape modern medical education, with relevance to current clinical practice. The book is an invaluable and visual introduction for students, academics, managers, and practitioners.

Demographic ageing is identified as a global challenge with significant social policy implications. This book explores these implications, with a particular focus on the pressures and prospects for ageing societies in the context of austerity. The book presents a carefully crafted study of ageing in Ireland, one of the countries hardest hit by the Eurozone financial crisis. Providing a close, critical analysis of ageing and social policy that draws directly on the perspectives of older people, the text makes significant advances in framing alternatives to austerity-driven government policy and neoliberalism, giving a refreshing interdisciplinary account of contemporary ageing.

The performance of public services is now more closely scrutinised than ever before. Every teacher, doctor, social worker or probation officer knows that behind them stands a restless army of overseers, equipped with a panoply of league tables, star ratings, user opinion surveys, performance indicators and the like with which to judge them. This increased scrutiny and performance measurement has undoubtedly produced improved public services. Yet we still have a limited understanding about how this information can be best used to bring about improvements in performance. What goes on inside the 'black box' of public organisations to move from information to action, or from 'knowing' to 'doing'? This book tackles this important question by reviewing a wide range of performance mechanisms. It explores how information about performance can be translated into improvements in services and, conversely, why this does not always happen in practice.

Drawing on interdisciplinary, cross-national perspectives, this open access book contributes to the development of a coherent scientific discourse on social exclusion of older people. The book considers five domains of exclusion (services; economic; social relations; civic and socio-cultural; and community and spatial domains), with three chapters dedicated to analysing different dimensions of each exclusion domain. The book also examines the interrelationships between different forms of exclusion, and how outcomes and processes of different kinds of exclusion can be related to one another. In doing so, major cross-cutting themes, such as rights and identity, inclusive service infrastructures, and displacement of marginalised older adult groups, are considered. Finally, in a series of chapters written by international policy stakeholders and policy researchers, the book analyses key policies relevant to social exclusion and older people, including debates linked to sustainable development, EU policy and social rights, welfare and pensions systems, and planning and development. The book's approach helps to illuminate the comprehensive multidimensionality of social exclusion, and provides insight into the relative nature of disadvantage in later life. With 77 contributors working across 28 nations, the book presents a forward-looking research agenda for social exclusion amongst older people, and will be an important resource for students, researchers and policy stakeholders working on ageing.

Today's students are tomorrow's doctors. The quality of education they receive is vitally important to the successful future of healthcare. Medical education as a discipline has a long history and has developed enormously in the past decade with the emergence of evidence-based teaching techniques, outcomes based curricula and assessment methods that are valid and reliable - however it will never be an exact science. It will always depend on enthusiastic teachers and ambitious learners who are hungry for new knowledge and skills. This thoroughly researched and fully referenced compendium of quotes has been specially selected to motivate and encourage medical educators who will find the themed structure vital in planning and delivering their courses. Students, too, will be inspired and nurtured in their learning.

This book provides the first foundation of knowledge about the intellectual traditions, contemporary scope and future prospects for the interdisciplinary field of rural gerontology. With a focus on rural regions, small towns and villages, which have the highest rates of population ageing worldwide, Rural Gerontology is aimed at understanding what it means for rural people, communities and institutions to be at the forefront of twenty-first-century demographic change. The book offers important insights from rural ageing studies into today's most pressing gerontological problems. With chapters from more than 65 established and emerging rural ageing researchers, it is the first synthesis of knowledge about rural gerontology, harnessing a burgeoning interdisciplinary scholarship on the rural dimensions of ageing, old age and older populations. With a view to advancing a critical understanding of rural ageing populations, this book will have an overreaching impact across the social sciences by drawing on advancements in understandings of rural ageing from social, environmental, geographical and critical gerontology to facilitate a comprehensive exploration of the diversity, complexity and implications of the ageing process in rural settings. Bringing together valuable international perspectives, this book makes a timely contribution to gerontology, rural studies and the social sciences, and will appeal to scholars and researchers across USA and Canada, UK and Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, China and countries in Africa, South America and South-East Asia.

This popular book is written by leading experts in the field and covers all the key aspects of healthcare management. Written with healthcare managers, professionals and students in mind, it provides an accessible and evidence-based guide to healthcare systems, services, organizations and management. Key areas covered include: * Structure and delivery of healthcare services in the international context, including mental health, acute care, primary care, chronic disease and integrated care * Allocating resources for healthcare: setting and managing priorities * Health technologies, research and innovation * Global health policy: governing health systems across borders * Patient and public involvement in healthcare * Healthcare governance and performance This third edition has been significantly rewritten, with 10 new contributors and a new chapter structure designed to better support learning, practical application and further study. In addition, there is a more international focus and each chapter includes new case studies giving global examples of health systems and services, new and updated learning activities to encourage application to your own organization, and a range of links to useful online resources. Healthcare Management is essential research-based reading for students, teachers and healthcare professionals involved in management, research and health policy making. "Walshe and Smith have assembled an invaluable introduction to healthcare management and health systems. With their fellow authors, they provide a comprehensive review of a range of issues related to the funding and provision of care, and how services are organised and managed. Now in its third edition, Healthcare Management has been updated and revised to meet the needs of teachers and students alike." Professor Chris Ham, Chief Executive, The King's Fund, UK "This book covers the main areas of knowledge which managers need, and gives tools for thinking and empirical examples relevant to current challenges. Evidence based management might not always be possible, but this book gives a way for a manager to become research-informed and therefore more effective. This third edition of the book is even more relevant internationally and improved to help readers apply the ideas to their situation." Professor John Ovretveit, Director of Research, LIME/MMC, The Karolinska Institute, Sweden "No-one learns to be a manager in a classroom or from a book, but books that take this disclaimer as their starting point are indispensable. Walshe and Smith (and their fellow authors) invite their audience (healthcare managers, healthcare policy makers and postgraduate students, taking courses in healthcare management) to critically combine experiential learning with academic learning and to acquire knowledge from both practice and theory. By doing so, they have found the third way between the advocates of evidence-based management and their criticasters." Dr. Jan-Kees Helderman, Associate Professor in Public Administration, Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

Providing a comprehensive and evidence-based reference guide for those who have a strong and scholarly interest in medical education, the Oxford Textbook of Medical Education contains everything the medical educator needs to know in order to deliver the knowledge, skills, and behaviour that doctors need. The book explicitly states what constitutes best practice and gives an account of the evidence base that corroborates this. Describing the theoretical educational principles that lay the foundations of best practice in medical education, the book gives readers a through grounding in all aspects of this discipline. Contributors to this book come from a variety of different backgrounds, disciplines and continents, producing a book that is truly original and international.

Public Services Inspection in the UK provides a detailed account of the changing role of inspection in public services management. It analyses the key debates about the role that inspection plays in increasing public accountability and encouraging service improvement. Contributors describe current inspection methods across the key public sectors of education, social care, the criminal justice system, local government services and healthcare, and examine the underlying issues and tensions associated with public services inspection. They compare approaches adopted in different parts of the UK and present evidence that can be drawn on to develop more effective practice, as well as offering recommendations for future policy and research. Public Services Inspection in the UK is essential reading for public service managers, social workers, policy makers, researchers, academics, students and professionals working in public services who have an involvement in the inspection process.