This volume and its companion, The new dynamics of ageing volume 2, provide comprehensive multi-disciplinary overviews of the very latest research on ageing. It reports the outcomes of the most concerted investigation ever undertaken into both the influence shaping the changing nature of ageing and its consequences for individuals and society.This book concentrates on three major themes: active ageing, design for ageing well and the relationship between ageing and socio-economic de...

Since the early 1990s, long-term care policies have undergone significant transformations across OECD countries. In some countries these changes have responded to the introduction of major policy reforms while in others, significant transformations have come about through the accumulation of incremental policy changes.The book brings together evidence from over 15 years of care reform to examine changes in long-term care systems occurring in OECD countries. It discusses and compare...

Canada, like other countries, is aging. The media has reported on a "grey tsunami," a demographic change reflecting longer life expectancy and the retirement of the so-called baby boomer generation. The numbers and percentages of older adults within our population continue to increase. In 2010, 15.3 percent of Canada's population was over 65; in 2030, it will be 24.1 percent. Many commentators have risen alarm about this flood of adults potentially bankrupting our health care system. This ...

Making policy is what governments do, but there are some fascinating and hotly debated issues associated with how government decisions get made in the interests of the people. The concept and practice of evidence-based policy-making insists that properly developed public policy draws on the best available evidence. This book considers how governments in Canada have historically interacted with research and what directions these interactions may take in the future. The goal of government maki...

Universal healthcare, perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Canada's public policy, is under fire, criticized for its heavy expense and questionable sustainability. In Where to From Here?: Keeping Medicare Sustainable, Stephen Duckett defends Canadian Medicare, addressing key concerns and refuting criticism, while also acknowledging flaws in the system and room for improvement.Duckett argues that while the fundamentals of Medicare are sound, a great deal of change is ...

"The guide that the Government should have written, but didn’t!" Now updated for 2016/17, this is the comprehensive guide to the Special Educational Needs & Disability Code of Practice 2014 and new SEN  framework, which came into force in September 2014.    From award-winning Douglas Silas, a solicitor specialising exclusively in special educational needs, it includes and links to all relevant legislation, regulations and gui...

How can we ensure high-quality public services such as health care and education? Governments spend huge amounts of public money on public services such as health, education, and social care, and yet the services that are actually delivered are often low quality, inefficiently run, unresponsive to their users, and inequitable in their distribution. In this book, Julian Le Grand argues that the best solution is to offer choice to users and to encourage competition among providers. Le Grand ...

The number of elderly people relying on formal long-term care services is dramatically increasing year after year, and the challenge of ensuring the quality and financial stability of care provision is one faced by governments in both the developed and developing world. This edited book is the first to provide a comprehensive international survey of long-term care provision and regulation, built around a series of case studies from Europe, North America and Asia. The analytical framework a...

Outcome in the management of public services refers to the impact of a particular public sector activity. This book provides a critical assessment of the way outcome is measured, exploring the need to balance objective and subjective forms of

In an era of scarce social resources the question of the changing social policy constructions and responses to disabled people has become increasingly important. Paradoxically, some disabled people are realising new freedoms and choices never before envisioned, whilst others are prey to major retractions in public services and aggressive attempts to redefine who counts as 'genuinely disabled'.Understanding disability policy locates disability policy into broader social policy and w...

Over the last two decades, many changes have happened to the social welfare policies of various industrial countries. Citizens have seen their pensions, unemployment benefits, and general healthcare policies shrink as “belt tightening” measures are enforced. But in contrast, long-term care has seen a general growth in public financing, an expansion of beneficiaries, and, more generally, an attempt to define larger social responsibilities and related social rights.The aim of this bo...

In 1983, the first patient classification system to be used on a national basis, the Diagnosis Relate Groups (DRGs), was adopted as part of the Prospective Payment System in the United States. This system caught the attention of health policy makers in other countries, and a number of them began to implement similar approaches. What motivated them to adopt these systems? What similarities and differences were there among their experiences in implementing these systems? What can we learn ab...