We conducted an integrative review of the global-free maternity (FM) policies and evaluated the quality of care (QoC) and cost and cost implications to provide lessons for universal health coverage (UHC).

Using integrative review methods proposed by Whittemore and Knafl (2005), we searched through EBSCO Host, ArticleFirst, Cochrane Central Registry of Controlled Trials, Emerald Insight, JSTOR, PubMed, Springer Link, Electronic collections online, and Google Scholar databases guided by the preferred reporting item for systematic review and meta-analysis protocol (PRISMA) guideline. Only empirical studies that described FM policies with components of quality and cost were included. There were 43 papers included, and the data were analysed thematically.

Forty-three studies that met the criteria were all from developing countries and had implemented different approaches of FM policy. Review findings demonstrated that some of the quality issues hindering the policies were poor management of complications, worsened referral systems, overburdening of staff because of increased utilisation, lack of transport, and low supply of stock. There were some quality improvements on monitoring vital signs by nurses and some procedures met the recommended standards. Equally, mothers still bear the burden of some costs such as the purchase of drugs, transport, informal payments despite policies being ‘free’.

FM policies can reduce the financial burden on the households if well implemented and sustainably funded. Besides, they may also contribute to a decline in inequity between the rich and poor though not independently. In order to achieve the SDG goal of UHC by 2030, there is a need to promote awareness of the policy to the poor and disadvantaged women in rural areas to help narrow the inequality gap on utilisation and provide a sustainable form of transport through collaboration with partners to help reduce impoverishment of households. Also, there is a need to address elements such as cultural barriers and the role of traditional birth attendants which hinder women from seeking skilled care even when they are freely available.

To discuss the development of the family and community health nurse (FCHN) in Italy by focusing on three levels: organisational, political and theoretical.

The role of the FCHN in Italy is not yet embedded evenly across the Italian National Health System (INHS) and does not have formal recognition, either contractually or organisationally. Although complementary post-basic training has been available for over a decade, the FCHN’s role in Italy currently exists only in pilot form. In some regions, the FCHN has operated for longer, thanks to which a clearer understanding of the functions and responsibilities required by the FCHN has emerged. Proposals for professional and social policies have emerged, as the FCHN’s role may be an answer to health problems and a contributor to the construction of social capital, capable of influencing both individual and collective well-being.

A mixed method investigation via a parallel concurrent design to identify the organisational models for the FCHN was conducted across Italy. In this paper, two profiles are discussed – family and community health nursing and FCHN – but each with its different connotations. The former refers to the practice of nursing and the latter to the nursing practitioners working with family and the community.

We describe the expected future outcomes for FCHNs as elements of social innovation for the development of a new welfare system.

Ghana in 1999 adopted the Community-based Health Planning and Service (CHPS) policy to enhance access to primary health care (PHC) service. After two decades of implementation, there remains a considerable proportion of the country’s population, especially women who lack access to basic health care services.

The aim of this paper is to understand the contribution of Ghana’s CHPS policy to women’s access to PHC services in the Upper West Region (UWR) of Ghana.

A logistic regression technique was employed to analyse cross-sectional data collected among women (805) from the UWR.

We found that women who resided in CHPS zones (OR = 1.612; P ≤ 0.01) were more likely to have access to health care compared with their counterparts who resided in non-CHPS zones. Also, rural-urban residence, distance to health facility, household wealth status and marital status predicted access to health care among women in the region. Our findings underscore the need to expand the CHPS policy to cover many areas in the country, especially rural communities and other deprived localities in urban settings.

Substance misuse in older people represents a growing clinical and public health problem within primary care.

The aim of article is to explore policy and research evidence for informing best practice in the assessment, treatment effectiveness, treatment implementation and approaches to recovery for older people with substance misuse in primary care.

Relevant search terms were used to examine the databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and PsychINFO up to January 2016.

An age-sensitive approach is required to overcome barriers to assessment. Training is essential for developing relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes. Clinical audit be used to develop care pathways, particularly for older people with dual diagnosis. There is also a need to develop closer links between primary care and the secondary care specialties, as well as added value in working with carers and voluntary agencies.

Further research is needed to inform more effective approaches to treatment. Adequate funding for workforce development and quality improvement in service development are also essential to improve health outcomes and quality of life in older people with substance misuse.

Older people from deprived areas, the oldest old and those from ethnic minorities engage less in health promotion interventions and related research, potentially generating inequities.

To explore and map the extent to which such ‘hard to reach’ groups of older people, are the focus of local health and well-being strategies in England.

Document analysis of current health and well-being promotion strategies in a purposive sample of 10 localities in England with high proportions of some or all of the three hard to reach groups. Documents were analysed using an interpretive approach.

A total of 254 documents were retrieved and reviewed. Much of the content of the documents was descriptive and reported the implications for resources/services of population ageing rather than actual initiatives. All localities had an Older People’s Strategy. Strategies to counter deprivation included redistribution of winter fuel payments, income maximisation, debt reduction and social inclusion initiatives, a focus on older owner occupiers and recruitment of village ‘agents’ to counter rural deprivation. The needs of the oldest old were served by integrated services for older people, a community alarm service with total coverage of the 85+ population, and dietary advice. The needs of black and minority ethnic (BME) older people were discussed in all localities and responses included community work with BME groups, attention to housing needs and monitoring of service use by BME older people. Three other themes that emerged were: use of telecare technologies; a challenge to the idea of ‘hard to reach’ groups; and outreach services to those at most risk.

Document analysis revealed a range of policy statements that may indicate tailoring of policy and practice to local conditions, the salience of national priorities, some innovative local responses to policy challenges and even dissenting views that seek to redefine the policy problem.

This study aimed to explore the ability of sexual health nurses working in the South West of England, to implement new learning within existing sexual health service delivery models. Drawing on Lipsky’s account of street-level bureaucracy to conceptualise policy implementation, the impact of workforce learning on the development of integrated services across this region of the United Kingdom was assessed.

In order to achieve the United Nations’ goal of universal access to sexual health, it is essential for reproductive and sexual health, including HIV provision, to integrate into a single service. This integration requires a commitment to collaboration by service commissioners and an alignment of principles and values across sexual health and contraceptive services. UK health policy has embraced this holistic agenda but moves towards integrating historically separate clinical services, has presented significant workforce development challenges and influenced policy success.

Employing a qualitative approach, the study included data from semi-structured telephone interviews and focus groups, and longitudinal data from pre- and post-intervention surveys, collected between September 2013 and September 2015. Data were collected from 88 nurses undertaking a workforce development programme and six of their service managers. Data were analysed using thematic analysis to identify consistent themes.

Nurses confirmed the role of new learning in enabling them to negotiate the political landscape but expressed frustration at their lack of agency in the integration agenda, exposing a clear dichotomy between the intentions of policy and the reality of practice. Nevertheless, using high levels of professional judgement and discretion practitioners managed the incongruence between policy and practice in order to deliver integrated services in the interests of patients. Workforce education, while essential for the transition to the delivery of integrated services, was insufficient to fulfil the sexual health agenda without a strengthening of public health.

Health care is provided under the conditions in which people live and under the rules and regulations of a prevailing health system. As a consequence, ‘local’ circumstances are an important determinant of the actual care that can be provided and its effects on the health of individuals and populations. This plays in particular, but not exclusively, a role in community-based primary health care. Although this is generally accepted, there is little insight in the impact of the setting and context in which health care is provided on the outcome of care.

This paper argues the case to use this natural variation within and between countries as an opportunity to be used as a form of natural experiment in health research.

We argue that analysing and comparing outcomes across settings, that is comparative outcomes of interventions that have been performed under different health care conditions will improve the understanding of how the real-life setting in which health care is provided – including the health system, the socio-economic circumstances and prevailing cultural values – do determine outcome of care.

To facilitate comparison of research findings across health systems and different socio-economic and cultural contexts, we recommend a more detailed reporting of the conditions and circumstances under which health research has been performed. A set of core variables is proposed for studies in primary health care.

This study set out to examine how Primary Care Organisations (PCOs) in England manage, organise and deliver their safeguarding children responsibilities.

In the light of changing organisational configurations across primary care, a wealth of policy directives and a climate of extensive media attention around child protection, this paper focuses on how PCOs respond to national policy and deliver safeguarding children services.

This study, based in England, United Kingdom (UK), used a telephone survey method incorporating semi-structured qualitative interviews with Designated Child Protection Nurses. A maximum variation sampling strategy was used to identify two to three PCOs within each of the original 28 Strategic Health Authority sites. From the 64 PCOs approached, 60 Designated Nurses or their representatives agreed to participate in the research, with a response rate of 94%. Data analysis was informed primarily by Lincoln and Guba's (1985) three stages of a) unitising, b) categorising and c) pattern search.

The findings outline how and to what extent PCOs respond to the national policy and organise and deliver their child protection services. The paper highlights some of the key challenges facing PCOs, in particular, safeguarding moving off the primary care agenda, child protection staff recruitment difficulties, a proliferation and overload of policy, resource implications for additional staff training, challenges to collaborative working, high referral thresholds to social care services and cutbacks in public health nursing services. This paper concludes by offering some suggestions about how child protection services could be improved as primary care faces another major reorganisation with the demise of Primary Care Trusts in April 2013.

To ascertain how new funding arrangements, introduced in New Zealand's 2001 Primary Health Care (PHC) Strategy, have impacted on the expansion of nurses’ role in general practice.

Nurses are central to the new policy that was designed to improve the health status of New Zealanders and reduce inequalities in health. Nurses were to be a crucial part of the PHC team, expanding their current roles to provide increased access to appropriate services. This paper investigates how the new funding arrangements, introduced as part of the policy, have impacted on the expansion of nurses’ roles and consequently the realisation of the policy goals.

Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 128 key stakeholders five years after the introduction of the PHC Strategy, and surveys were completed by practice nurses, general practitioners and practice managers in purposively selected practices within the 20 participating Primary Health Organisations.

There has been substantial growth in the development of nursing roles for some nurses in general practice; however, this expansion has not been universal and one of the main reasons for this is the way funding devolves at the practice level. One of the consequences of the policymakers not taking into account the business model of the majority of general practices, is the resulting overarching goal of the strategy not being realised, and inequalities in health status remaining.

This paper explores the variable provision of English health visiting services, despite government emphasis on the need to reduce health inequalities through early interventions and provide support to families with pre-school children.

There is increasing evidence of the importance to later health of early child development; that is from prenatal to eight years of age. In this population group, the strongest evidence for health improvement emphasizes support for families (especially mothers) until the infant is at least two to three years of age. In the last four to five years, English government policy has focused strongly on this important life stage, particularly noting its relevance in reducing health inequalities. Simultaneously, the health visiting workforce, arguably the occupational group most closely associated with this form of work, has reduced by 10%; and there is evidence of extreme variability in the way services are provided across the country.

Three sources of data were analysed to discover whether the variation in health visiting services relates to need, levels of deprivation or whether other factors are influential in planning provision. The ratio of health visitors to pre-school children was mapped to indices of multiple deprivations across 144 Primary Care Trusts. Survey data were examined for evidence of links, or not, to levels of deprivation and, finally, 30 Children and Young People’s Plans (CYPPs) were analysed to explore strategic planning about the distribution and type of services.

Health visiting service provision appears unrelated to areas of deprivation; although, the survey data offered some evidence that individual practitioners focused efforts on the most deprived clients on their caseloads, regardless of location. At a strategic level, the CYPPs made little mention of pre-school children or their needs and offered only limited descriptions of preventive health services. Policy recommendations are made about strengthening service provision in this field.