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THIS ARTICLE APPRAISES the Government's White Paper, The New NHS: Modern, Dependable, from the perspective of a health authority chief executive, outlining the context for developing health care, the joint challenges of the White Paper and the Green Paper, Our Healthier Nation, the role and potential of primary care groups (in detail), the developing role of the health authority, and the agenda for shaping and improving the delivery of health and health services. It ends with an appraisal of particular implications for community care.

The article discusses the use of a systematic approach to quality as an essential prerequisite for any health authority′s purchases of health care for its resident population, and also outlines the West Dorset philosophy, describing the implementation of a quality assurance programme under the following headings: Standards Definition; Auditing and Monitoring Standards Service Review and Improved Resource Use; Customer Care; Outcomes of Care; and Organisational Audit and Accreditation. It summarises two recent and ongoing initiatives, “Seeking Consumer Views” and “Asking GPs about Strengths and Weaknesses of Local Health Services”.

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the Achieving Age Equality Toolkit, to give the background to its development, and to advise readers of the ways in which it has already been successful in the health and social care arena.

The subject of this paper is the ban on age discrimination in goods and services that came into force on 1 October 2012. The objectives of the paper are achieved by setting out the policy context, and by detailing how the age equality recommendations were made through an independent review.

Older people have different experiences of health and social care services, but most want to be able to access support when they need it. Age as a barrier to treatment and screening in areas such as mental health and cancer continue to give cause for concern. Organisations need to ensure they are working in an “age equal” way across services.

Implications for further research could include an assessment of the extent of “institutional ageism” in services after the ban on age discrimination in goods and services on 1 October 2012.

The article illustrates through case studies how use of the toolkit enables one organisation to better identify where changes are needed towards embedding anti age discrimination practice.

As well as obeying legal requirements, ending age discrimination in health and social care requires a change in hearts and minds towards encouraging society to think differently about the ways in which older people are supported by health and social care services.

Since the review, there have been repeated cases of age discrimination in goods and services, illustrating the need for change.

The purpose of this paper is to offer some personal reflections and experience of using coproduction in the NHS. The purpose is to demystify coproduction and it is hoped that sharing personal experience will encourage others who may be contemplating using this approach in their quality improvement work.

Informed by underpinning literature, the approach is a combination of sharing case studies that span several decades at both the macro and micro level. Whilst several of the examples used are not mental health specific, they are equally applicable in this setting.

Coproduction principles can be used at all levels of the health and care system and are generally empowering for those involved. By soliciting insights from those who would not normally have a voice, it can help to overcome blind spots and produce better products and services. There is a correlation between staff engagement and patient outcomes which provides compelling evidence for coproduction approaches to be incorporated into organisational practice. Furthermore, patients and service users should no longer be considered as passive recipients of care but as an integral component of quality improvement processes.

The case studies offer examples of using coproduction at a national, organisational and individual level. In particular, the lessons learned from design science such as “thinking like an anthropologist” are shared. The distinction is made between patient satisfaction and patient experience and the impact that coproduction can have on organisational culture is discussed. By mobilising resources, knowledge and expertise across communities, coproduction capitalises on the “wisdom of the crowds” philosophy.

A survey of integrated working between primary care trusts (PCTs) and adult social services across England was undertaken in December 2009 and January 2010. The survey results are presented in the context of the history of integrated working between health and social care, and the recent policy announcements of the Conservative‐Liberal Democrat Coalition Government.

The pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities is not always successful. On the one hand, entrepreneurial failure offers an invaluable opportunity for entrepreneurs to learn about their ventures and themselves. On the other hand, entrepreneurial failure is associated with substantial financial, psychological, and social costs. When entrepreneurs fail to learn from failure, the potential value of this experience is not fully utilized and these costs will have been incurred in vain. In this chapter, the authors investigate how the stigma of failure exacerbates the various costs of failure, thereby making learning from failure much more difficult. The authors combine an analysis of interviews of 20 entrepreneurs (who had, at the time of interview, experienced failure) with an examination of archival data reflecting the legal and cultural environment around their ventures. The authors find that stigma worsens the entrepreneurs’ experience of failure, hinders their transformation of failure experience, and eventually prevents them from utilizing the lessons learnt from failure in their future entrepreneurial activities. The authors discuss the implications of the findings for the entrepreneurship research and economic policies.

This article’s indented contribution is to provide novel theoretical insights and empirical observations on “who gets what” in the way of incomes, including wages. The article challenges the conventional wisdom about stratification, especially power and status, as an outcome or function of economic distribution. It posits that income distribution is conditional on pre‐existing social stratification expressed in antecedent differences in class, power, status and related factors.