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In the UK healthcare sector, funding and provision of public care facilities has been primarily the responsibility of government through the National Health Service (NHS). After decades of under-investment and consequent effects on the quality of care, new procurement routes are currently being used to improve the standards of facilities to meet the requirements of modern care services. This paper critically reviews these new procurement routes in terms of concepts and suitable areas of application, and examines how the principal procurement methods have evolved into the forms used for UK healthcare facilities. The paper outlines recommendations for further research in assessing the suitability or otherwise of these new procurement methods, both for construction projects generally and specifically for healthcare facilities.

The long-term plan for the National Health Service (NHS, 2019) identifies a blueprint to make the NHS fit for the future with a greater focus on prevention, improving services for patients and the importance of integrating services to make them more effective and efficient. The challenge is in the delivery and who is responsible to implement changes. The key is to enable staff at local levels to have responsibility for ensuring that the health and social needs of their local population are met.

Established to oversee the implementation is the NHS Assembly with 50 individuals from across the health and care sector to advise NHS England and NHS Improvement on the implementation. This requires shared commitment and motivation to change; ensuring patient centred care is at the forefront of any changes to delivering care. At regional level, Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships and Integrated Care Systems are groups of local NHS organisations, local councils and other partners, who are working together in the region to develop and implement the NHS plan. There are many challenges ahead to ensure the plan delivers better regional health and social care, including the impending UK’s decision to leave the European Union. Brexit may present some opportunities but if freedom of movement and membership of the single market and customs union end as planned, NHS and social care face several significant threats in the region.

The paper examines the processes of evaluating the quality of two library and information services for health professionals in the UK: higher education (HE) health library and information services and those of the National Health Service (NHS). Both are principally serving the same user group – clinicians at various stages in their professional lives. Health professionals need access to services from libraries in both sectors for their initial pre‐qualification course. The concept of life‐long learning has strengthened the need for clinicians to be able to locate relevant information when and where they need it. This need for dual access is continued after becoming qualified when they undertake continuing professional development, complete research, deliver evidence‐based care and help patients with their information needs. Despite NHS and HE health libraries serving the same user group there are many differences between libraries in the two sectors. The level of difference is discussed, demonstrating that the quality processes are often diametrically opposed.

Collaboration on procurement of e‐content between health libraries in the National Health Service (NHS) and in higher education (HE) should have advantages in increasing their negotiating power to improve licence terms and avoiding unnecessary duplication of content. The aim of the paper is to examine some of the strategies for ensuring that collaboration across the two sectors works effectively. The paper is based on a report to the Joint Information Systems Committee of the Funding Councils (for higher and further education) in the UK, and the NHS Library and Knowledge Development Network, on research conducted in 2006.

The methods included interviews (n=39) with representatives from NHS and higher education bodies, representatives of independent health libraries, the National Library for Health, collective agencies, publishers and aggregators.

There were common interests in functionality/interfaces, open access, and better metrics for estimating usage that might contribute to discussions with publishers over the licence terms. There are differences in the type of resource each sector might deem to be core. The extent of existing collaboration on purchasing and related collection management activities varied considerably across the UK. Three possible paths for cooperative activity were identified: sharing information and joint advocacy; building the technical infrastructure; and joint procurement. Mapping of the stages, roles, actors and stakeholders in some processes was done with “use cases” (Unified Modeling Language) to help identify some of the risks involved.

Poor response from online surveys limited the validity of the forecasting of user needs. Usage statistics were difficult to obtain and compare.

The paper concludes that collaborative procurement of e‐content activities should focus on health services research requirements, and open access needs across the sectors. More innovative analysis of usage statistics is required to profile usage and inform cost analyses of both the impact of new roles for health librarians, and cost analyses of e‐resources on a life cycle basis.

The paper develops new ways of examining the business processes required for collaborative procurement.

This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of the Journal of Management in Medicine is split into seven sections covering abstracts under the following headings: General Management; Personnel and Training; Quality in Health Care; Health Care Marketing; Financial Management; Information Technology; Leadership, management styles and decision making.

Purpose: In this chapter, we examine the National Health Service (NHS) and Adult Social Care (ASC) in England, focussing on policies that have been introduced since 2000 and considering the challenges that providers face in their quest to provide a high standard and affordable health service in the near future.

Methodology/Approach: We discuss recent policy developments and published analysis covering innovations within major aspects of health care (primary, secondary and tertiary) and ASC, before considering future challenges faced by providers in England, highlighted by a 2017 UK Parliament Select Committee.

Findings: The NHS and ASC system have experienced tightening budgets and serious financial pressure, with historically low real-terms growth in health funding from central government and local authorities. Policymakers have tried to overcome these challenges with several policy innovations, but many still remain. With large-scale investment and reform, there is potential for the health and social care system to evolve into a modern service capable of dealing with the needs of an ageing population. However, if these challenges are not met, then it is set to continue struggling with a lack of appropriate facilities, an overstretched staff and a system not entirely appropriate for its patients.

This chapter presents an organizational learning approach to understanding the objectives and challenges of an National Health Service (NHS) Sustainable Development agenda, which involves the integration of social, ecological and economic concerns into organizational functioning, for example the construction and management of buildings, design and delivery of services, and employment of staff.

The approach is used to frame an empirical analysis of 11 Projects conducted by NHS organizations aiming to advance this agenda during a particularly active phase in the mid to late 2000s. The approach helps identify the assumptions of organizational purpose, strategy and practice inherent in proposals for Sustainable Development and expose the challenges these are likely to pose. This framing helps articulate a vision and identify the actor groups, and their guiding assumptions, which need to be engaged if progress is to be made.

The vision of Sustainable Development being promoted was predominantly one of an NHS contributing to the economic and social determinants of health through its procurement, service development and employment activities. Contributions to environmental determinants only took place where financial gains to the NHS organizations themselves made activities, such as investment in renewable energy, viable in the short-term. Within most Projects strategic tools able to predict and measure benefits had to be developed on-the-job and most received help from external agencies to do this work.

Rather than expecting individual NHS organizations to progress this agenda alone, others involved in the shaping of collective assumptions of the NHS' purpose and strategies for growth must be engaged in what can be viewed as a social process of learning.

The article seeks to explore the practical and theoretical implications of the ways in which senior figures in the National Health Service (NHS) interpret the role of the centre in relation to the delivery units of the health service. This is important in the light of recent plans for reorganisation of the NHS advanced by the new Conservative‐Liberal coalition government.

The article is based on interviews with civil servants and NHS staff at senior levels in the centre and in the strategic health authorities (SHAs).

It is found that, in practice, despite numerous attempts to separate out policy making from implementation/management, the two continue to be closely coupled and intertwined. Central staff and regional officials are found to be both steering and rowing.

Only a small selection of senior officials at the centre and only a small proportion of SHA senior managers and directors were interviewed.

The implications are far‐reaching. Unless special steps are taken, it seems likely that these senior officials, despite the creation of some new institutions and the curtailment of others, will continue to behave in broadly similar ways to those described here.

Empirical studies of the thinking, assumptions and behaviour of very senior officials in the health service are rare. The analysis in this paper explores the organisational conditions that shape the actions of these senior players.

The Government's stated aim to modernise health services has seen the establishment of agencies and safeguards designed to ensure quality and protect patients. This paper considers how those agencies and safeguards may serve to prevent the abuse of vulnerable adults.

The NHS in the UK has recently adopted a new Performance Assessment Framework (PAF), aiming to provide a broader view of performance within the NHS. The PAF is not only a multi‐stakeholder approach reflecting various stakeholders’ interests across six dimensions, but is also used by the Government as a strategic management tool to link national strategies with local operation activities. The Government claims that the PAF is a “balanced scorecard” approach. This study discusses the concepts of the BSC underlying the NHS PAF.