How Do We Ensure That Primary Care in the UK Remains in Good Health?

General practice in the United Kingdom has long had an international reputation as a positive exemplar of primary care. Free at the point of access, funded on basis of population and needs (i.e. not a fee for service), and led by clinicians, our model is seen to have a better chance than most of providing the support that is preventative, coordinated, and with continuity of care. In this post, Professor Robin Miller considers how over recent years, it has become apparent that our traditional model will struggle with expected demographic changes such as an ageing population, the rise of obesity, and increasing people living with multiple long-term conditions. These combined pressures are indeed leading to frustration for patients in relation to accessing appointments, and considerable stress for general practice.

Taking a stand against bullying: Addressing mental health problems from within

Many people have childhood memories of being pushed around and being punched by other pupils when we felt you couldn’t retaliate. They may also remember being the topic of nasty rumours or being excluded by others. Unfortunately, being bullied is not an unusual experience, even today. Similar to maltreatment, bullying involves abusive behaviours where it is more difficult for the victims to defend themselves. But in contrast to maltreatment, these abusive behaviours are perpetrated by others of the same age. In this blog post, Professor Louise Arseneault discusses research that she has been conducting for the past 15 years – alongside great collaborators – and emphasises the importance of moving away from the common perception that bullying is just an unavoidable part of growing up.

How is patient experience feedback used to improve the quality of adult inpatient mental health care in NHS England?

EURIPIDES is the short title for Evaluating the Use of Patient Experience Data to Improve the Quality of Inpatient Mental Health Care study. EURIPIDES aimed to understand which of the many different approaches to collecting and using patient experience data are the most useful for supporting improvements in inpatient mental health care.

Researchers from the EURIPIDES study team have made a series of recommendations for improving the way that NHS mental health trusts collect and use patient feedback to improve the quality of care for mental health inpatients. In this post, Dr Sarah-Jane Fenton summarises some of the key findings ahead of the full report being published in early 2020 as health research academics call for NHS to act on mental health patient feedback.

What the Productivity Commission has to say about income support and mental health consumers

When the Productivity Commission recently released their draft report into mental health, there was a somewhat surprising focus on structural issues – particularly the role that the social safety net plays in supporting people with mental health conditions, their family members and carers. This is a particularly important issue for women, who have higher rates of diagnosis of mental health conditions and are more likely to be in unpaid caring roles. In today’s analysis, Yvette Maker of the Melbourne Social Equity Institute provides a summary of the draft report’s main concerns and what will be needed for the final report to make a real difference to current government policy trends.

Can the OECD be the clinic to get our economies off growth?

Power to Persuade8 November 2019Policy making, economic policy, wellbeing

Integrating needs and services: A person-centred and place-based approach

Providing support services has become an increasingly complex task, with current approaches not adequately meeting the needs of individuals or communities, especially those with multiple care needs. The increasing social and economic cost burden of this failure compounds a multi-level system that is already struggling with service integration (The Drum 2019). At least part of the problem relates to the lack of connection between the two levels of person and organisation, two circling systems that are not fully integrated.

Power to Persuade7 November 2019

Can Hip-Hop Save Rulemaking?

Power to Persuade5 November 2019Policy making, politics and democracy, social justice, media

Changing the story: Narration and framing in regulation and governance

In the once separate fields of politics and governance, the narrative is everything. Perhaps more. Mark Kenny from Australian Studies Institute looks how the government controls the storyline across Newstart, refugees and the Uluru Statement from the Heart and concludes it is the ‘back story’ that lends the government legitimacy.

Is she just more organised? Understanding the gendered labour of synchronisation and scheduling

Is there a gendered component to leisure time? Who organises and facilitates it in heterosexual couples? While the reinstatement of the Time use Survey is an important step in understanding how Australians use their time, in today’s analysis Julia Cook (@julia_anne_cook) of University of Newcastle (@Uni_Newcastle) and Dan Woodman (@DrDanWoodman) of University of Melbourne (@unimelbsoc) share the findings from their recently-published paper which utilises an in-depth approach to not only time use but also how time is coordinated and how women and men feel about task-sharing.

Womens Policy Action TankWomen's Policy Action Tank31 October 2019gender, Work-Life Balance, family

Black Swans Make Better Policy

At the recently-held Power to Persuade Symposium, the talk given by Aurora Milroy (@AuroraMilroy) of ANZSOG (@ANZSOG) was a stand-out. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, her talk was not captured on film. We are therefore pleased to present a summary of her talk and her slides here. Aurora spoke of “black swan theory” which highlights the deficits of western knowledge and ways of working. Acknowledging and honouring the ‘black swans’ that Indigenous ways of being and knowing represent brings a more holistic understanding and can mend broken relationships.

Why racialized youth perceptions of police matter

Kanika Samuels-Wortley, scholar at the University of Waterloo, reveals stories of police violence and prejudice towards Indigenous and Black populations, and explains why understanding these experiences is critical for justice and equity.

Issues, AdvocacyPower to Persuade30 October 2019policing, policy problem, justice, Social Welfare, incarceration, Equity

Telling the story of climate change: threat or emergency, and does it matter?

What happens if we classify climate change as a threat, not an emergency? Liz Boulton from the ANU’s Fenner School of Environment and Society explains how military strategy can be combined with new ideas from philosophy to understand climate change as a ‘hyperthreat’ – and describes what that might mean for crafting effective policy solutions. This is the second in the Narration as Regulation series from ANU’s School of Regulation and Global Governance (Regnet)

Innovation, Policy and governance, IssuesPower to Persuade29 October 2019climate change, Policy Research, communication

Countering poisonous stories: an example of sorcery in Papua New Guinea

This blog is the first in a series examining narration and renarration as regulation from the School of Regulation and Global Governance (Regnet) at ANU. Here, Miranda Forsyth and Philip Gibbs tell us what we can learn from attempts to curb sorcery accusation related violence in PNG.

What does it mean to criminalise coercive control?

While there is growing consensus that domestic and family violence is an expression of power that utilises coercive control, Australia’s legal system is designed to respond to incidences of physical aggression. This approach means victims are often mis-identified as perpetrators, and tragically that legal action can sometimes not be taken until it is too late. In today’s analysis, Paul McGorrery (@PaulMcgorrery) of Deakin University (@DeakinLaw) shares a summary of his research, conducted with Marilyn McMahon, on the U.K. experience of criminalising coercive behaviour.

Data (R)Evolution: Consumer welfare and innovation in the digital economy

Data-fuelled technologies and industries will deliver significant economic growth over the coming decade. How can we ensure that the benefits of that growth are shared fairly? The Consumer Policy Research Centre, an independent, for purpose consumer research think tank, is hosting a conference in Melbourne in November to explore consumer welfare and innovation in the digital economy. CEO Lauren Solomon explains who will be there and why it's important to examine the intersection between data, privacy regulation, competition policy and consumer protection.

ConferencesPower to Persuade23 October 2019economic policy, Wealth inequality, data, privacy, innovation

Teaching pleasure in sex-ed

In this blog piece, Churchill Trust Fellow Katrina Marson outlines the evidence for a sex-positive approach to sex education in schools. She argues that setting the baseline expectation that sex is something everyone enjoys, will meet standard harm prevention requirements while also paving the way for healthier relationships and wellbeing.

IssuesPower to Persuade22 October 2019education, health, young people

Australia falls behind OECD on paid parental leave

Labor has recently announced it is looking to Nordic countries for inspiration to overhaul Australia’s Paid Parental Leave scheme., which has been called out for being miserly compared to Australia’s OECD peers. Advocates say changes to the scheme could reduce the carer and housework gender gap, increase parent-infant bonding, reduce the gender pay and Superannuation gap, and improve overall health and wellbeing for families. In today’s analysis, Belinda Townsend (@BelTownsend) and Lyndall Strazdins, both of ANU and the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence on Health Equity (@crehealthequity), provide some history and context for how the Paid Parental Leave Scheme came to be, outline some of its strengths and weaknesses, and provide guidance for how to improve it going forward.

Womens Policy Action TankWomen's Policy Action Tank21 October 2019Gender Inequity, Children, employment

Vital signs. Our compulsory super system is broken. We ought to axe it, or completely reform it

The newly announced inquiry into Australia’s retirement income system comes 25 years after the introduction of compulsory superannuation. In today’s blog post Richard Holden, Professor of Economics at UNSW, discusses fundamental problems with the current system, and that what is needed in Australia is a retirement income revolution.

This post originally appeared in The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

When design meets power: design thinking, public sector innovation and the politics of policymaking

Responding to the need for innovation, governments have begun experimenting with ‘design thinking’ approaches to reframe policy issues and generate new policy solutions. But what is new about design thinking and how does it compares to rational approaches to policymaking? Maria Katsonis discusses below.

The article orginally appeared in The Mandarin

Modern Monetary Theory and the job guarantee: A new way of thinking for the social sector

As part of her popular Green New Deal platform, the US member of Congress Alexandria Orcasio-Cortez has been utilising Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to explain how governments can fund environmental policy reforms. But could MMT also be used by the social sector as a message frame to promote social policy reform? In today’s blog post Dr Andrew Joyce from the Centre for Social Impact and Celia Green from UNSW discuss the how the social sector could leverage insights from MMT to promote paradigm shifting social policy reforms.

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