Citation
Thistlethwaite, P. (2012), "Editorial", Journal of Integrated Care, Vol. 20 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/jica.2012.55320faa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Integrated Care, Volume 20, Issue 6
This is the final issue of 2012. I must also announce here that it is the final time I shall be writing the editorial, as I am retiring as Editor of this journal after 20 years.
This may come as a surprise to some readers, but in fact my readiness to retire has been openly shared with the publishers and Editorial Board since Emerald took over in 2011. The passage of time since then has been due entirely to the need to work out who might be the best person to approach to become editor in my stead. This has now been settled, very happily for all concerned – but more on that later.
I shall not be writing a reflective farewell, however. I think I did that with my extended editorial to issue 20.2, the special issue which marked our 20th anniversary. But it is nonetheless a significant time to move on, with the battle for an acceptance of integration as a way of improving care services pretty definitely won at the level of policy. The next phase is going to be about implementation, progress evaluation, and continuing innovation. The ground for this has been regularly prepared in the pages of this journal over the years, but we know that it is the most difficult phase of public policy, where much disappointment can be anticipated. We can also expect that the academic study of integrated care will develop a greater sense of identity and purpose in the immediate future, and presumably the new editor and Board will soon explore their options for the future shape of the journal.
An international flavour has developed in the journal in recent years, which I am certain will continue. In this issue, for example, Mirella Minkman leads off with a major article which touches both on the academic study of integrated care and on its further development in practice. I feel delighted that a young researcher has appeared to “seize the moment” with her work, somehow neatly encapsulating the opportunities ahead for the journal. She has also promised a more detailed article on the development process which will be submitted next year. Mirella’s focus is reflected also by Deirdre Heenan and Derek Birrell in their article on the changing organisation of integrated care in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, their article carries a timely warning about the potential marginalisation of social care as the powerful forces of healthcare may become dominant in the discourse about integration.
Journal of Integrated Care has fought from the start to ensure a broader awareness in service delivery of the total needs of the whole person, maintaining and extending its specialist focus on health and social care integration. Although the choice of future editor was not mine, I admit that I wanted the role to pass to someone who was as committed as I have been to equal partnership between different disciplines, together with service users, in integrated care development. I could think of several people in the world of health services who would have been well qualified to take the journal on, except for the lack of a track record concerning social care. I am delighted therefore to tell you that Jon Glasby has accepted the role: he is Professor of Health and Social Care at Birmingham University. What could be better? Although many people may actually know Jon as Director of the University’s Health Services Management Centre (HSMC), his early professional life was in social care. HSMC is a fine home for the future of this journal, and with Jon as Editor-in-Chief it is in the right hands.
Although retiring, I am making myself available as a reviewer, so I will have a small continuing link with the journal, and may come across some of you in that capacity. I wish a fond farewell to you all, but you will realise also that I am not leaving with a heavy heart.
Peter Thistlethwaite