BACKGROUND Legislation demands the establishment of client councils in Dutch nursing homes and residential care facilities. The members of those councils are residents or their representatives. Client councils have the right to participate in the strategic management of long-term care facilities. More specifically, they need to be consulted regarding organisational issues and a right to consent...

In long-term care facilities, the participation of older people relates to individual care provision (individual level) and to policy decisions that affect all residents in a care organization (collective level). In the Netherlands, resident councils are set up in order to improve resident participation on a collective level. However, our research shows that managers and resident councils are f...

Coordinating councils are frequently formed to promote a coordinated response to complex social issues (e.g., community health, violence prevention). Little is known, to date, however, about council effectiveness. Prior research on council effectiveness and the correlates of effectiveness have typically relied on case studies. While case studies provide rich descriptive information about the fu...

BACKGROUND In late 2007, some Swedish County Councils started 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) implementation for children, and PCV7 was included in the national immunization program in 2009. By 2010, both PCV10 and PCV13 were licensed, and the selection of vaccine was subject to County Councils tenders. This study investigated the impact of the order of PCV introduction into vacc...

CONTEXT Coalition research has shifted from delineating structures and processes to identifying intermediate, systems changes (e.g., changes in policies) that contribute to longterm community health improvement. OBJECTIVE The University of New Mexico, the New Mexico Department of Health, and community health councils entered a multiyear participatory evaluation process to answer: What actions...

In their essay in the April 2004 issue of PLoS Biology, Elizabeth Blackburn and Janet Rowley (2004), two distinguished cellular biologists and members of the President’s Council on Bioethics, strongly question the scientifi c foundation of two reports from the Council (President’s Council on Bioethics 2003, 2004). The Council on Bioethics was formed by executive order “to advise the President o...

Improving the performance of local authorities is high on the political agenda. Central government has implemented a range of policies to stimulate and focus improvement, there are extensive systems of support through national agencies of local government, and councils themselves are demonstrating ways of strengthening service and corporate performance. The desire by central government level to...

cern about the population of the locality in which we live. Basically, neighbourhood councils are equivalent to parish councils in an urban setting. Members elected to the councils will not have party political labels, they will normally represent an area with a population of about 10,000 and their main task will be to keep in touch with and represent the wishes of local people?keeping the larg...

SUMMARY Social work practice is increasingly concerned with support not just for service users but also for unpaid carers. A key aspect of practice is the assessment of carers' needs. The Government has recently passed legislation that will widen eligibility for carers' assessments and remove the requirement that carers must be providing a substantial amount of care on a regular basis. This art...

In the UK, licensing of taxi drivers is dealt with by local government authorities. In Scotland, before the recent reorganization of local government, taxi licensing was under the jurisdiction of District Councils, so a telephone survey was conducted of all 52 mainland Scottish District Councils to ascertain the procedures which were being employed in assessing medical fitness to drive a taxi, ...