Critical issues in practice development: localism and public health reforms.

This paper explores practice development and radical policy reforms found in the White Paper Healthy lives, healthy people, which place a higher priority on UK public health by integrating services under the concept of localism. As a method to improve health and reduce health inequalities, localism aims to promote public health services to be responsive, resourced, rigorous and resilient. However, issues of evidence-based practice, staff freedom to innovate against the tensions of reforms and organisational structures are significant within primary care.

Liberating the NHS; commissioning, outsourcing and a new politics debate.

In the short months following the result of the UK 2010 General election, a new Government White Paper has been released entitled: Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS (Department of Health (DH), 2010a). It strives to distance itself from previous health-care proposals (DH, 2009), yet if the initiatives of this latest paper are combined against previous initiatives, also using high impact declarative terms, such as competition and choice, it is clear that little has changed and more important principles than saving money are at risk.