Debates in Values-Based Practice

Demands on healthcare systems are increasingly complex and diverse. Consumerism, multiculturalism and regulation challenge practitioners and policymakers. This has led to urgent debate about the value and purpose of healthcare as people seek to make serious, well-thought through decisions. This book helps readers to make rational decisions about healthcare provision in the context of complex and diverse values. It offers no easy solutions, instead presenting a range of perspectives and arguments on values-based practice, an increasingly influential approach to managing value-conflicts/differences in medicine, psychiatry, health and social care. Readers must make their own minds up about the controversies, but this book will give them a sense of the scene and the ability to defend their own position with clarity and confidence. This is a valuable resource for health practitioners and managers, academics in health services research and policy and students of management, bioethics, applied philosophy and political and social theory.

Michael Loughlin is Reader in Applied Philosophy in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK.

'What a privilege to listen in to a civilised discussion between the originator of value based medicine, Bill Fulford, and those who seek to understand, to take it further, practically and philosophically, and to dissent. This book gives us all of that and the gracious response of Fulford to both friend and foe alike. It shows how such discussion can improve the practice of medicine and, by extension, inform approaches to global health. There is much here for philosopher and practitioner alike.' Sir Michael Marmot, Director, University College London Institute of Health Equity 'This impressive volume provides a thoroughgoing and spirited debate on the important topic of values-based practice. VBP is vetted from multiple professional and philosophical perspectives, yet the discussion truly coheres, a rarity in collections of this kind.' Sandra J. Tanenbaum, Ohio State University