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Many NHS policy documents state the need to make health information accessible to all. Accessibility comprises physical availability and personal retrievability. Touch‐screen public access kiosks have been available since the early 1990s and there is some evidence from a study of NHS Direct kiosks that they could improve physical access to health information. Most health centres have little space for longer use of computers by patients. Eventually home access to the Internet will be available to most people. In the meantime, computers based in public libraries offer potential to provide health information for patients referred by their GP. However, more thought is needed as to the format and content of the information. Information tailored using the patient’s medical record is preferred by patients and may enable patients to engage more social support. More evidence is needed from well‐designed studies to inform the debate.

The study of corporate psychopaths has gone from something which some academic peers found somewhat incredible, and even laughable, in 2005, to an area where an increasing amount of research is taking place across many disciplines. The paradigmatic view in 2005 was that psychopaths were criminal and, therefore, to be found in prisons and not in ‘respectable’ corporations. That chapters like this on corporate psychopaths and destructive leadership are now invited in 2020 for inclusion in academic management books that illustrates how relatively quickly the idea that psychopaths are found in corporations has gained acceptance. Nonetheless, destructive, unethical and psychopathic leadership is, by and large, still unexpected in the workplace, and this magnifies its impact as employees struggle to know how to deal with it. Such destructive leadership is also jarring and quite often traumatic for the employees concerned as well as being damaging to the organisations involved. This chapter examines psychopathic leadership and outlines its importance. This subject has been covered before in books and other chapters which describe psychopaths as organisational destroyers and producers of a climate of fear. Therefore, an aim of this chapter is to present some of the most up-to-date findings on corporate psychopaths and how they influence their environment via abusive supervision involving discrimination, ridicule and lowered job satisfaction. Abusiveness and unfairness lead to employees experiencing workplace stress and reduced mental health. The implications of corporate psychopathy for corporate legal responsibility are only just being considered as lawyers, ethicists and philosophers engage with this difficult subject.

The Depository Library Program was established to provide government information to the general public. The libraries that are appointed to this program assume complete fiscal responsibility for providing this service. Recent policy decisions within the federal government evidence a trend toward a continuing decline in the availability of nonelectric government information. Depository libraries need to increase their budgets to maintain bibliographic, physical, and intellectual access to this information as costs rise.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the introduction of individual personal budgets for older people and people with mental health problems in one local authority (LA) in 2011.

Jenny Weinstein is a Hon Senior Lecturer at Kingston University, Professor Ray Jones and Rick Hood are based at the Joint Faculty of Health and Social Care, St George's, University of London and Kingston University, London, UK.A qualitative study is described in which structured interviews were carried out with participants belonging to each service user group. The study aimed to explore the following issues: first, service users’ experiences of the assessment process, second, whether service users wanted full control of their budgets and third, if personal budgets make a difference to quality of life.

xService users (n=7 older people and carers; n=7 people with mental health problems) found the personal budgets system and assessment process difficult to understand and its administration complex. Older people in particular were reluctant to assume full control and responsibility for managing their own personal budget in the form of a Direct Payment. Participants in both groups reported their continued reliance on traditional home care or day care services. These findings were reported back to the LA to help staff review the implementation of personal budgets for these two user groups.

Study participant numbers are low due to difficulties recruiting. Several potential participants were not interviewed due to their frailty.

Studies of this type are important for constructing local knowledge about national policies such as the implementation of personal budgets in social care.

Studies of this type are important for constructing local knowledge about national policies such as the implementation of personal budgets in social care.

The article explores the drivers for legislative and policy change in children's social care in England over the past 60 years. It describes the factors that led to the major children's social care legislation and explores how these ‘drivers for change’ varied in their importance over time. Particular attention is given to the impact of research evidence as a driver for change among, for example tragedy and media scandal, political developments and changes in practice prompting legislative reform. The article also notes how research has at times provided a background for change while not explicitly promoting the change itself. The use of performance information and research in shaping and monitoring change is seen to have increased in the past 30 years, but with continuing tensions between a natural and necessary research timescale and the political wish for quick and clear answers to pressing issues.

The article follows up a prospective article published just before the Election with a review of the Coalition's vision for health and social care. It concludes that, despite risks of increased fragmentation, there are new opportunities for integration in both commissioning and provider functions. Local authorities should move quickly to influence and lead the new partnerships.

In the recent government Comprehensive Spending Review there is a promise of a Green Paper on social care services for disabled and, especially, older people. The platform on which any new proposals will be built is likely to be heavily influenced by the Government's personalisation agenda for public services. It is timely, therefore, to reflect not only on the strengths but also on the potential pitfalls of a major stream, self‐directed support, for the personalisation agenda in adult social care. Anticipating and guarding against unintended consequences of policy are as important as championing the positive opportunities promoted by the policy.

Whilst the government makes progress on opening up children’s social work, including child protection, to the market place and to private and commercial businesses, there has been little comment on the strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats, of the political policy direction being pursued. In particular, what are the implications for the integration and consolidation of services, which had been the “joined-up” services policy ambition of previous governments and, for health and social care services, remain the declared ambition of the current government? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper considers the potential impact on children’s social work services and child protection from the government’s policy and regulatory changes which open up all children’s social work to the market place.

Particular concerns are noted that the changes now being allowed and promoted will lead to greater fragmentation rather than integration.

This is the first paper to reflect on the government’s push and preference for the unregulated market place it created in 2014 for children’s social work, including child protection.

Specially formulated frit materials have been applied in thick film superconductors similar to the standard thick film materials in order to achieve processing parameters closely compatible with conventional thick film technology and alumina substrates. The applied frits have improved the adhesion and superconductor properties at the same time due to a superconductor bridge formation between the grains. Both YBCO and BSCCO systems have been analyzed. The results are promising.