LSE Health and Social Care

Welcome to the LSE Health and Social Care website.

LSE Health and Social Care (LSEHSC) - a research centre in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science - was established in 2000. It brought together in one centre LSE Health| and the Personal Social Services Research Unit| (PSSRU). The Centre's fundamental mission is the production and dissemination of high quality research in health and social care.

The Centre's unique research base contributes to the LSE's established world presence and reputation in health policy, health economics, social care policy and mental health economics. Bringing together a core team of researchers and academics, LSE Health & Social Care promotes and draws upon the multidisciplinary expertise of 71 staff members, 45 associated academics and a large number of postgraduate students. Disciplinary backgrounds include accounting, applied social statistics, demography, econometrics, economics, geography, health policy, health services research, public health, and social policy. Further information is available on the LSE's Experts page for LSE Health| and PSSRU|. 

Latest

News

• Latest issue of Eurohealth, Volume 16 No 1
  Migration and health in the European Union
  
  
• 3rd August 2010 (Altarum Institute - blog)
  Learning from Health Care Reform Abroad - More Lessons from the British National Health Service
  Blog article by Zack Cooper, Research Officer, LSE
  
  
• 3rd August 2010 (awares.org)
  Autism 'costs the UK almost £28 billion a year' 
  Professor Martin Knapp, LSE, comments on the research
  
  
  
• Lastest issue of EuroObserver, Volume 12 No 2
  This issue focuses on specialist human resources in Europe, with case studies on Germany, Greece, Romania and Sweden.
  
  
  
• Seminar on Reproductive health and morbidity, 6 November 2010                     Call for Papers, 31 July 2010.  Download the flyer here for more details                                                               
                                                                          
  
• LSE Health and NHS Confederation Seminar Series 2010  More details
  Invitation and Programme
  
  
• 18th February 2010 (The Times - Queen's Anniversary Prizes 2010, pgs 2 & 3)
  Looking for the answers in health and social care
  " LSE Health and Social Care, a research centre within the LSE's department of social policy, has won a Queen's Anniversary Prize for applying research to the advancement of global health and social care policy. "The centre works to bridge the gap between research and policy," explains Professor Alistair McGuire, head of the department of social policy. A key part of its work involves identifying best practice across the European Union and discovering how it stems from local policies. The centre is currently involved in developing the EU's mental health strategy. Its work has also fuelled debate about contentious healthcare reforms in the United States. "
  
  
• The Effects of HIV/AIDS on Rural Communities in East Africa: A Twenty Year Perspective
  Janet Seeley (University of East Anglia), Stefan Dercon (University of Oxford) and Tony Barnett (London School of Economics and Political Science)
  Published in Tropical Medicine and International Health, March 2010
  
  
• 14th January 2010
  LSE Health to establish and maintain the new CHRE International Observatory on the Regulation of Health Professionals
  
  
  LSE Health has been awarded a contract by the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence (CHRE) to establish and maintain the new CHRE International Observatory on the Regulation of Health Professionals. The objectives of the Observatory are to advance understanding, enable learning across countries and facilitate the spread of good practice in the regulation of health professionals internationally. The Observatory's work programme will include country reporting, commissioned research, a rapid response facility to provide information and policy advice, and the production of analytical reports on key topics such as revalidation, fitness to practise, trends in regulatory reform and the impact of payment reform on professional behaviour. Observatory research will also address broader topics relating to the identification and adoption of good practice and to how country context affects the potential for regulatory reform.  Working closely with CHRE, the work at LSE Health will be led by Professors Alistair McGuire and Elias Mossialos and will be coordinated by Thomas Foubister. Professor Julian Le Grand (Chair of LSE Health) will sit on the Observatory's strategy group and Professor Robert Baldwin of the Department of Law will be an advisor to Observatory research activity.
  
  
• 18th November 2009
  LSE Health and Social Care wins a Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education 2009.
  
  -Read the full LSE Health and Social Care submission brochure:
  Bridging Research and Policy for Better Health and Social Care
  
  -Read the full LSE press release:
  Queen's Anniversary Prize
  
  
  
• 1st October 2009 (Time Magazine)
  A Looming Drug Crisis: The Dearth of New Antibiotics
  Coverage of the report on antibiotic research released 17th September 2009, led by Elias Mossialos, LSE Health. 
  
  
• 1st October 2009 (CNN.com)
  New research warns penicillin 'becoming obsolete'
  Coverage of the report on antibiotic research released 17th September 2009, led by Elias Mossialos, LSE Health.
  
  
• 26th September 2009 (British Medical Journal)
  Europe's Knowledge Broker
  Tessa Richards, assistant editor of the BMJ, looks at the work of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies on the evidence it provides to help Europe's health ministers develop their policies.
  
  
• 24th September 2009 (British Medical Journal)
  What can we learn from German health incentive schemes?
  Incentives aimed at changing individual health behaviours are well established in Germany. Harald Schmidt (LSE Health), Andreas Gerber and Stephanie Stock (University of Cologne) describe how they work and discuss some of the difficulties.
  
  
  
• 17th September 2009
  Policies and Incentives for Promoting Innovation in Antibiotic Research
  Professor Elias Mossialos, LSE Health, leads research into the challenges concerning antibiotic resistance and launches a new report commissioned by the Swedish Government. The report was presented at an expert conference in Stockholm on 17th September. More information
                  
  Coverage of this news can be found at the following links:
  
  (Swedish Presidency of the European Union website)             
  -Press Invitation: Göran Hägglund to take part in expert conference on antibiotics      
  -Constructive dialogue on incentives for developing new antibiotics
  
  (FINCHANNEL.COM - Global News Channel)
  -New antibiotics desperately needed as penicillin becomes obsolete    
  
  (Time Magazine)
  -A Looming Drug Crisis: The Dearth of New Antibiotics
  
  (CNN.com)
  -New research warns penicillin 'becoming obsolete'
                        
  
  
• PSSRU research feeds into new care and support Green Paper
  PSSRU research led by Julien Forder and Jose-Luis Fernandez has provided the analytical modelling underpinning the new Green Paper on the future funding of care and support services in England. The cross government green paper, "Shaping the Future of Care Together", introduces the radical new concept of a national care system, and proposes one of three alternatives funding models. A paper summarising the first stage of the analysis can be found at http://www.pssru.ac.uk/pdf/dp2644.pdf.
  
  The full Green Paper can be found on the Department of Health website at
  http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/News/Recentstories/DH_102782.
  
  
• Professor Elias Mossialos awarded €4.5 million research grant
  The European Commission's Research Directorate has awarded Professor Elias Mossialos, director of LSE Health, a €4.5 million research grant to develop methodologies and indicators for assessing health system efficiency and quality. This represents the second largest research grant ever awarded to LSE by the Commission and the largest so far from the Framework Programme 7.
   
• Dilemmas in social care to be tackled by new national research school
  Announcing the new NIHR-funded School for Social Care Research led by Professor Martin Knapp, co-director of LSE Health and Social Care. With a budget of £15 million over the next five years, the SSCR will lead research in the adult social care practice field, aimed at improving services to improve people's lives.
  Full LSE Press Release
   
• Couples with children outside wedlock 'should be married by the State'
  Prof Julian Le Grand, the architect of a clutch of New Labour policies such as baby bonds, is calling for marriage to be the legal "default" setting for new parents.
  Daily Telegraph, 1 May 2009
  
  
• Dr Adam Oliver, LSE Health and Social Care, has been awarded £187,221 from the Wellcome Trust for the Centre for the Study of Incentives in Health. Further details
   
• Professor Martin Knapp, LSE Health and Social Care, has been awarded £58,990 from HEFCE to improve the transfer of research-based knowledge and the quality of the dialogue between research centres and social care organizations, users, carers, practitioners and policy makers. Further details
   
• Autumn of love: Chris Arnot talks to Martin Knapp, professor of social policy at the LSE and director of the LSE's personal social services research unit as well as the new national School for Social Care Research. He discusses the latter's launch, and expresses the belief that its £15m budget could be recognition that social care hasn't been given the same attention as primary healthcare.
  Guardian (Education), 28-Apr-2009, page 9
  
  
• Using financial incentives to achieve healthy behaviour: Paying people to change their behaviour can work, at least in the short term. However, as Theresa Marteau, Richard Ashcroft, and Adam Oliver explain, there are many unanswered questions about this approach.
  British Medical Journal, 23 April 2009
   
• NHS can't afford to keep on saving lives, says cancer expert: Health economist Julian Le Grand, of the London School of Economics, suggested there should be "a consistent rule that says what will be funded and what won't. It shouldn't be a question of who shouts the loudest."
  Sunday Herald, 13 April 2009
   
• Bribery - the key to better public health: Obese patients in Kent are being paid up to £425 to lose weight by the NHS in a trial to test whether financial incentives can be used to change unhealthy behaviour... Paying people to change their habits works because it offers immediate rewards for behaviour that will only provide a health benefit in years ahead. The approach was recommended last month in a report by Health England, a government advisory group chaired by a former No 10 health adviser, Julian Le Grand.
  The Independent, 10 April 2009
   
• Britain's Homecare Scandal: Care of the elderly is a professional job. Assisting medication, feeding, changing, bathing, even using hoists demands a level of expertise we expect in the care of some of our most vulnerable people. Research from the London School of Economics, commissioned by Panorama, found that 70% of home care is provided by the independent sector today and is worth £1.5 billion.
  BBC, 9 April 2009
   
• Research Assessment Exercise 2008

Publications

• LSE Health Research Digest, Issue 2, March 2009. See news
• PSSRU LSE Research Bites, Issue 9
• LSE Health Research Student Programme
• Eurohealth, Volume 15, Number 4
• Euroobserver, Volume 12, Number 2