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Successful development of health and social care partnerships is contingent on the contribution of all stakeholder groups to overcome the ‘wicked’ issues that beset the field. This article explores four key issues, identified by a network of diverse stakeholders as vital to the future of health and social care partnerships, and proposes ways in which individuals and organisations from all stakeholder groups can support health and social care organisations to work together to deliver good outcomes to service users and their carers.

This chapter draws from the authors’ experiences with service-learning pedagogy in allied health training programs, and illustrates ways in which community-engaged teaching and learning can prepare students to become ethical healthcare practitioners. The authors infuse examples from their own courses throughout the chapter, mostly from the clinical fields of speech-language pathology, audiology, and occupational therapy. However, the chapter is applicable and generalizable to faculty from a wide scope of allied health training programs. The chapter introduces considerations for establishing campus–community partnerships in an ethical manner, as well as ways to foster student self-reflection and critical thinking through an ethical lens. Principles from the codes of ethics of various allied health professions are incorporated throughout the chapter along with examples of how each can be applied in community-based clinical experiences. Through a review of relevant literature, analysis of professional codes of ethics, case-based examples, and a step-by-step guide to course development, this chapter provides readers with a mechanism to ground their courses in professional ethics in a way that is relatable and relevant to students.

The Scottish Parliament has recently formed Community Health Partnerships (CHPs), in which health and social care providers come together within a unified organisational framework. This paper aims to assess the extent to which employees identify with their profession and whether professional identity poses a significant barrier to multi‐disciplinary, inter‐organisational partnership.

The study adopted a mixed methodology approach. A survey of all CHP staff was conducted, four months after the CHP was created and obtained a 31 per cent response rate. Additionally, to obtain an in‐depth understanding of the partnership, 26 interviews were conducted with senior and middle level managers and professional representatives.

A strong professional identity in the health and social care context was evident while the partnership vision, in contrast, lacked clarity. Therefore under these circumstances individuals' sense of occupation has been heightened due to perceived attempts to erode their professional identity, and modifications to their sense of “self” have not been challenged by a strong partnership ethos.

Managers face a deep‐rooted cultural based challenge where individuals strongly identify with their profession rather than the ethos of the partnership, which impedes full integration. Managers have a “balancing act” of addressing structural and processual change within the integration agenda, without losing sight of the outcomes in terms of service delivery and improving health and wellbeing.

This paper examines the implications of a new major health policy change that aims to integrate health and social care. In addition, the study unravels the complex issue of professional identity in this context.

Service systems for people with learning disabilities in Scotland have developed in the context of the Scottish legal system and devolved policy for health. Scottish organisations are responding to the spectrum of mental health needs by working in partnership to improve quality. This article describes this system and the key organisations, and presents some findings of the National Overview Report of services undertaken by NHS Quality Improvement Scotland.

Purpose – A structured comparison, based on underlying social ecological constructs, provides the framework for this preliminary investigation of the commonalities and differences between three emerging approaches to health disparities: community-based participatory research (CBPR), community-focused health outreach (CFHO), and community health promotion programs (CHPP).

Methodology/approach – A conceptual review and preliminary analysis at the macrolevel of major community trends that focus on eliminating health disparity outcomes.

Findings – Each of the three community health approaches share similar purposes using community-focused collaborative efforts, but involve different change agents, levels of partnership, timeframes, social participation, and implementation methodologies.

Research limitations/implications – Additional in-depth literature reviews and meta-evaluations highlighting the contributions of each of the three approaches (CPBR, CFHO, and CHPP) are strongly recommended.

Practical implications – Interested community stakeholders can monitor results and impacts of each of the three approaches within their environments.

Originality/value of paper – Past reviews have concentrated on isolating individual contributing social causes of health disparities. This analysis introduces three emerging trends that currently function within community-based frameworks as potential mechanisms for helping the health disadvantaged.

Policy and practice documents are increasingly adopting a focus on outcomes. This article seeks to clarify what is meant by the term ‘outcome’, the outcomes that have been highlighted in key policy documents, and the extent to which they reflect the outcomes prioritised by service users. The discussion will draw on the early stages of a DoH‐funded project exploring the effectiveness of health and social care partnerships from the perspectives of service users.

While it has long been established that social factors, such as housing, transportation, and income, influence health and health care outcomes, over the last decade, attention to this topic has grown dramatically. Reforms that promote high-quality care as well as responsibility for total cost of care have shifted focus among health care providers toward upstream determinants of health care outcomes. As a result, there has been a proliferation of activity focused on integrating and aligning social and medical care, many of which depend critically on cross-sector alliances. Despite considerable activity in this area, cross-sector alliances in health care remain largely undertheorized. Both literatures stand to gain from more attention to carefully knitting together the theoretical and management literature on alliances with the empirical, health policy and health services literature on cross-sector alliances in health care. In this chapter, we lay out what exists in the current scientific literature as well as a framework for considering much needed work in this area. We organize the literature and our commentary around the lifecycle of alliances: alliance formation, including factors prompting alliance formation, partner selection, and alliance goals; alliance maturity, including the work of these cross-sector alliances, governance, finance and contracts, staffing structure, and rewards; and critical crossroads, including alliance timelines, definitions of success, and dissolution. We also lay out critical areas for future inquiry, including better theorizing on cross-sector alliances, developing typologies of these cross-sector health care alliances, and the role of policy in cross-sector alliances.

Despite evidence showing the benefits of early diagnosis of breast cancer many Australian women delay seeking advice when they find a change in their breast. This paper describes the process evaluation of a national programme to encourage women to see their general practitioner within three months of finding a breast change. The programme used a partnership approach involving different sectors of the community to deliver an inexpensive national programme with sustainable community components. The programme included strategies to promote messages through the news media, television commercials, community meetings across Australia and general practitioner based strategies. This paper reports on a process evaluation of the implementation of the programme; outcome measures will be available at a later stage.

The role of implicit provider bias in mental health care is an important issue that continues to be of concern in the twenty-first century for the Black/African American community. Access to mental health and quality care remains elusive as members of this social group lack access to mental health screening, diagnosis, and attention due to institutional and cultural barriers. Supporting the position that implicit and explicit provider bias exists in the mental health profession, this chapter will explore how implicit provider bias is an intractable institutional barrier that prevents Black/African Americans from accessing mental health and quality care. A review of the implications related to mental health outcomes with Black/African American clients will also be explored.

A brief overview of the Black/African American cultural responses to implicit provider bias will be discussed later in this chapter. There will be an exploration of the ways to help identify, address, and eliminate implicit provider bias using evidence-based personal and community engagement strategies that promote mental health wellness within the Black/African American community. Implications for best practices in Black/African American mental health will also be addressed to eradicate the risk of unethical or medical malpractice with Black/African American clients, reduce the mental health disparity experienced by Blacks/African Americans, and create mental health equity for this population.