SC DMH client advocacy report

The Client Advocacy Office at the South Carolina Department of Mental Health publishes a monthly report with information on complaints resolved at agency centers and other statistics on the Client Advocacy Office.

Tackling health inequalities in primary care: an exploration of GPs’ experience at the frontline

In Scotland, life expectancy and health outcomes are strongly tied to socioeconomic status. Specifically, socioeconomically deprived areas suffer disproportionately from high levels of premature multimorbidity and mortality. To tackle these inequalities in health, challenges in the most deprived areas must be addressed. One avenue that merits attention is the potential role of general medical practitioners (GPs) in helping to address health inequalities, particularly due to their long-term presence in deprived communities, their role in improving patient and population health, and their potential advocacy role on behalf of their patients. GPs can be seen as what Lipsky calls ‘street-level bureaucrats’ due to their considerable autonomy in the decisions they make surrounding individual patient needs, yet practising under the bureaucratic structure of the NHS. While previous research has examined the applicability of Lipsky’s framework to the role of GPs, there has been very little research exploring how GPs negotiate between the multiple identities in their work, how GPs ‘socially construct’ their patients, how GPs view their potential role as ‘advocate’, and what this means in terms of the contribution of GPs to addressing existing inequalities in health. Using semi-structured interviews, this study explored the experience and views of 24 GPs working in some of Scotland’s most deprived practices to understand how they might combat this growing health divide via the mitigation (and potential prevention) of existing health inequalities. Participants were selected based on several criteria including practice deprivation level and their individual involvement in the Deep End project, which is an informal network comprising the 100 most deprived general practices in Scotland. The research focused on understanding GPs’ perceptions of their work including its broader implications, within their practice, the communities within which they practise, and the health system as a whole. The concept of street-level bureaucracy proved to be useful in understanding GPs’ frontline work and how they negotiate dilemmas. However, this research demonstrated the need to look beyond Lipsky’s framework in order to understand how GPs reconcile their multiple identities, including advocate and manager. As a result, the term ‘street-level professional’ is offered to capture more fully the multiple identities which GPs inhabit and to explain how GPs’ elite status positions them to engage in political and policy advocacy. This study also provides evidence that GPs’ social constructions of patients are linked not only to how GPs conceptualise the causes of health inequalities, but also to how they view their role in tackling them. In line with this, the interviews established that many GPs felt they could make a difference through advocacy efforts at individual, community and policy/political levels. Furthermore, the study draws attention to the importance of practitioner-led groups—such as the Deep End project—in supporting GPs’ efforts and providing a platform for their advocacy. Within this study, a range of GPs’ views have been explored based on the sample. While it is unclear how common these views are amongst GPs in general, the study revealed that there is considerable scope for ‘political GPs’ who choose to exercise discretion in their communities and beyond. Consequently, GPs working in deprived areas should be encouraged to use their professional status and political clout not only to strengthen local communities, but also to advocate for policy change that might potentially affect the degree of disadvantage of their patients, and levels of social and health inequalities more generally.

People with psychiatric disabilities, employment, and the Americans with Disabilities Act : turning policy into practice : report from the Center for Mental Health Services ADA Roundtable, January 25-26, 1995 /

"The report ... summarizes the major points of discussion at the meeting as well as integrating other pertinent information"--P. iii.

Whose health, whose care, whose say? Some comments on public involvement in new NHS commissioning arrangements

Recent health policy in England has demanded greater involvement of patients and the public in the commissioning of health and social care services. Public involvement is seen as a means of driving up service quality, reducing health inequalities and achieving value in commissioning decisions. This paper presents a summary and analysis of the forms that public involvement in commissioning are to take, along with empirical analysis from a qualitative study of service-user involvement. It is argued that the diversity of constituencies covered by the notion of ‘public involvement’, and the breadth of aims that public involvement is expected to achieve, require careful disaggregation. Public involvement in commissioning may encompass a variety of interest groups, whose inputs may include population needs assessment, evaluation of service quality, advocacy of the interests of a particular patient group or service, or a combination of all of these. Each of these roles may be legitimate, but there are significant tensions between them. The extent to which the structures for public involvement proposed recognize these possible tensions is arguably limited. Notably, new Local Involvement Networks (LINks), which will feed into commissioning decisions, are set as the arbiters of these different interests, a demanding role which will require considerable skill, tenacity and robustness if it is to be fulfilled effectively.

Iowa Department of Public Health Office of Minority and Multicultural Health Strategic Plan 2012 to 2017, February 19, 2013

The Iowa Department of Public Health's Office of Multicultural Health invited 21 representatives, key informants throughout the State of Iowa and five state personnel to help chart a strategic map for the OMH staff and it constituents to travel during the next 3-5 years, as the office strengthens its infrastructure and continues to meet its mission. This two day strategic planning session brought forth the consensus of maintaining the four major function areas held within the 2007 to 2011 strategic plan. Those four areas are: education, advocacy, data and training and development. 2

Review of the Community Residential Care Facilities Program, Department of Health and Environmental Control

This review was predicated on a credible complaint alleging substantial health and safety deficiencies in the care of a resident placed in a Community Residential Care Facility (CRCF) in Kershaw County, South Carolina. Initial investigation with subject matter experts, non-profit advocacy groups, and CRCF inspection reports revealed this single incident might be a symptom of systemic health and safety deficiencies throughout DHEC’s CRCF Program, which regulates 471 CRCFs with the approximately 17,000 vulnerable clients, primarily elderly and disabled. This review’s scope and objectives were: Assess the risk of a vulnerable population of elderly and disabled citizens residing in CRCFs living in unsatisfactory health and safety conditions; Evaluate DHEC’s CRCF Program inspection process capabilities to identify and address CRCFs with unsatisfactory health and safety living conditions; Recommend opportunities to improve the CRCF Program.

SC DMH client advocacy report

The Client Advocacy Office at the South Carolina Department of Mental Health publishes a monthly report with information on complaints resolved at agency centers and other statistics on the Client Advocacy Office.

SC DMH client advocacy report

The Client Advocacy Office at the South Carolina Department of Mental Health publishes a monthly report with information on complaints resolved at agency centers and other statistics on the Client Advocacy Office.

SC DMH Client Advocacy Report January 2009

The Client Advocacy Office at the South Carolina Department of Mental Health publishes a monthly report with information on complaints resolved at agency centers and other statistics on the Client Advocacy Office.

SC DMH Client Advocacy Report February 2009

The Client Advocacy Office at the South Carolina Department of Mental Health publishes a monthly report with information on complaints resolved at agency centers and other statistics on the Client Advocacy Office.

SC DMH Client Advocacy Report March 2009

The Client Advocacy Office at the South Carolina Department of Mental Health publishes a monthly report with information on complaints resolved at agency centers and other statistics on the Client Advocacy Office.

SC DMH Client Advocacy Report April 2009

The Client Advocacy Office at the South Carolina Department of Mental Health publishes a monthly report with information on complaints resolved at agency centers and other statistics on the Client Advocacy Office.

SC DMH Client Advocacy Report May 2009

The Client Advocacy Office at the South Carolina Department of Mental Health publishes a monthly report with information on complaints resolved at agency centers and other statistics on the Client Advocacy Office.

SC DMH Client Advocacy Report June 2009

The Client Advocacy Office at the South Carolina Department of Mental Health publishes a monthly report with information on complaints resolved at agency centers and other statistics on the Client Advocacy Office.

SC DMH Client Advocacy Report July 2009

The Client Advocacy Office at the South Carolina Department of Mental Health publishes a monthly report with information on complaints resolved at agency centers and other statistics on the Client Advocacy Office.