Welfare Reform on the Web (April 2009): Social care - overseas

Communities of practice in health and social care

A. le May

Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009

The book highlights how communities of practice (CoPs) can make service development and quality improvement in health and social care easier to initiate and more sustainable. Using a series of case studies from the UK and Canada the book demonstrates how the theory of CoPs is implemented in the delivery of health and social care and highlights the associated potential, complexities, advantages and disadvantages.

International rescue?

J. Glasby and H. Dickinson

Community Care, Mar. 19th 2009, p.30-31

Integration of health and social care services is being pursued in most developed countries. There are surprising similarities in the approaches used, and experience of reforms in many countries suggests that issues of interprofessional practice, culture and organisational development may be more important than the specific structures adopted. Many countries are struggling with the implications of new technology for delivery of health and social care and with the challenge of developing more personalised services.