Primary healthcare for people with mental health problems or learning disabilities.

The physical health inequalities experienced by people with mental health problems or learning disabilities are well established, though comprehensive data for England and Wales have not previously been available. Nor have the reasons for inequalities been examined in detail. The Disability Rights Commission in Great Britain set out to examine such inequalities in relation to primary healthcare and to establish what remedial actions are needed.

The role of UK general practitioners with special clinical interests: implications for policy and service delivery.

The development of specialist clinical interests by general practitioners (GPs) is currently receiving considerable attention in the United Kingdom. Although GPs have long been able to pursue such interests, it is only in recent years that they have taken on within primary care what were previously secondary care tasks, provided such services for patients outside their own practices, and received payment for them. The expansion of such services has been highlighted as a target in the NHS plan for England.

A problem of communication? Diabetes care among Bangladeshi people in Bradford.

People of Bangladeshi origin in the UK continue to experience poorer health and poorer healthcare than other sections of the community. Although communication with medical and nursing staff has long been recognised as key to the provision of effective healthcare services, efforts to overcome communication problems have often been minimal: many practitioners and patients rely on informal interpreters, usually family members, to assist them, despite the shortcomings of these arrangements. The present paper examines the experiences of 12 Bangladeshi people in Bradford, obtained during the course of a wider evaluation of diabetes services.

Access to diabetes services: the experiences of Bangladeshi people in Bradford, UK.

Recent years have seen a renewed emphasis in UK healthcare policy on access to services, yet there has been little research into possible inequalities in access for people from different ethnic backgrounds. This paper examines access from the point of view of a group of Bangladeshi people with diabetes, whose views were obtained as part of a wider evaluation of diabetes services. Their message is a powerful one.

A service users' research advisory group from the perspectives of both service users and researchers.

Much has been written about the importance of involving service users in the research process. Far less is available about the experience of involvement from the perspective of service users themselves. The present paper is a joint account by service users and researchers of a service users' advisory group set up to support and advise a project to evaluate diabetes services in Bradford, UK.

The housing needs of disabled people.

This paper presents the results from a study of the housing needs of disabled people in Shropshire. The study involved interviews with disabled people, representatives of a county-wide disabled people's organization, and staff from social services, housing and health agencies. A questionnaire was sent to a sample of disabled people in the county, and quantitative data were examined.

User involvement and the NHS reforms.

The policy of 'user involvement' in the UK National Health Service emerged during the 1990s along with the reforms that created an internal market. Despite the official rhetoric, progress has been limited. Critics suggest that, not only was the policy flawed in its conception by the construction of service users as consumers and the conflation of consumerism with empowerment, but collaborative models of involvement have tended to legitimate rather than challenge existing provision.