Healthcare systems across the developed world are in trouble. Changing patterns of disease, an ageing population and advances in drugs and technology feed an inexorable rise in costs outrunning our best efforts to contain them. At a human level the system is coming under intolerable strain. Demands for cost savings squeeze out the time and humanity needed for good care and quality relationships. Safety suffers. Staff become demoralised, stressed and burned out. In the first two parts of Humanising Healthcare and focusing on the UK's National Health Service, Dr Hannah explores the fundamental assumptions which have brought us to this point and which likewise inform our current inadequate responses. She dissects the burgeoning regime of regulation and inspection that tries to impose ever tighter controls on a healthcare system that needs to be freed to serve its citizen patients. In the final part of the book, 'Another Way Is Possible', Dr Margaret Hannah offers a practical alternative strategy based on numerous examples of transformative practice from the UK and around the world. It promises a sustainable culture of healthcare that will enable us all to live healthy, fulfilled lives at a fraction of the current cost. Nuka Chief among Dr Hannah's case studies is the 'Nuka' model of care in Alaska. Healthcare in the Nuka system is based on reconnecting people into the web of life. Don Berwick, a former health adviser to President Obama and a founder of the highly respected Institute for Healthcare Improvement, has declared that Nuka "is probably the leading example of healthcare redesign in the world. US healthcare suffers from high costs and low quality. This system has reversed that: the quality of care is the highest I have seen anywhere in the world, and the costs are highly sustainable. It's extraordinary. It is surely leading healthcare to its new and proper destination."

""This excellent book could not be more timely. It must now be apparent to almost everyone that we cannot go on as we have done in the past ... The authors set out a vision of a future in which we have rebalanced our relationship with the world around us. They give us a sense of purpose and reason for hope that, together, we might be able to attain it."
Professor Martin McKee CBE, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK

"This book grounds the new approach to public health in systems thinking, challenges mantras of modernity and prioritizes sustainability and well-being. Read it and take the third public health revolution the next step forward."
Professor Ilona Kickbusch, Director Global Health Programme, The Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland

"With the emerging evidence from the Human Genome Project that genes play little part in the genesis of most illness, this is a particularly timely book: it shows the central part that public health interventions must play in creating a healthy population."
Oliver James, Broadcaster, journalist, clinical psychologist and bestselling book author"

Obesity, depression, addiction, loss of wellbeing: these are issues which sap the resources and spirit of modern practitioners. Public health is being challenged by the existence of an 'ingenuity gap' - the gap between an interacting kaleidoscope of problems and our capacity to respond effectively.

This innovative text bridges the gap between current public health values and skills and those required to tackle future challenges. The authors introduce the key models and theories of public health, as well as the factors that have shaped its history and development.

The book also: Establishes the links between current public health problems and emerging threats like global warming and resource depletion Explores the true nature of modern and emerging threats to health Creates a new model for the 'future public health' Explores what these changes will mean for the future public health practitioner This is a book which sets out the reasons why we need a fundamentally new approach to public health and explores how this might be achieved.

"The Future Public Health" is informed by a six year research project, commissioned by the Scottish Government, to trace the development of our current situation and look for solutions to the challenges facing public health. Visit the AfterNow website (www.afternow.co.uk) to access an array of resources including: Introductory videos 12 Audio podcasts Over 30 short papers and essays