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Date sent: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 12:10:25 -0000
Send reply to: "Mcdaid,D" <[log in to unmask]>
From: "Mcdaid,D" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: LSE conference update/correcting misinterpretations
To: [log in to unmask]
Dear All,
Recently, there was an announcement on this website that LSE
Health &
Social Care was holding its launch conference in January 2002. All
available places are now taken. If you would really like to be there
and
would like to be added to a "reserve list" you could contact Derek
King,
([log in to unmask]) but at the moment even that list is quite long
and no
promises can be given. Apologies if this leaves you unable to
attend an
event that attracted you.
When the conference announcement was posted on this website, Alison
Macfarlane (City University) posted two messages of her own. The first
asked "Can the LSE group tell us what the brief of their new enterprise
is? It sounds like a campaign to privatise and sell off health care. Who
is funding this? Remember Railtrack?". The second, following clarification
from one of us (DMcD) ran like this: "I am sorry if the brevity of my
message made it sound inflammatory, but I still have real concerns about
the emphasis of the agenda, which seemed to be heavily biased towards
privatisation. In particular, if the ex-PSSRU element is still funded by
DH, to what extent is this focussing on alternatives to a publicly funded
NHS?"
Would that the LSE Health and Social Care Launch Conference did have a
large secret sponsor and was awash with funds. In fact the conference is
funded entirely from our own resources. It is intended to be a showcase
for our academic work and interests. It is of course not part of any
"campaign" - except one to bring our research activities to the forefront
of academics' and policy-makers' attention.
We should also take this opportunity to correct Alison's
misinterpretations and misunderstandings regarding PSSRU (or "ex-PSSRU" as
she erroneously suggests). So, here are ten things you always wanted to
know about PSSRU but which some people never dared to check:
1. PSSRU is alive and well (it is now in its 27th year), and
thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to continue to undertake interesting,
relevant, independent, academic research.
2. PSSRU is located on three sites (the University of Kent at
Canterbury, where it started out in 1974, the London School of Economics
where it has been since 1996, and the University of Manchester where it
has also been since 1996). Within each institution, PSSRU is based within
a parent department or group, which inter alia provides the environment to
undertake collaborative research. At Kent, PSSRU is part of the School of
Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research. At LSE, PSSRU is part of LSE
Health and Social Care in the Department of Social Policy. At Manchester,
PSSRU is part of School of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences. Each of
those parent centres and departments is an academic body, pursuing the
things that academics like to pursue, with the freedoms that academics
rightly insist upon.
3. PSSRU, like the schools, centres and departments with
which
it is associated, does not pursue campaigns, except perhaps the campaign
to improve the equity and efficiency of health and social care.
4. PSSRU funding comes from a variety of sources. Currently,
the largest single source is the Dept of Health "Unit" grant, recently
rolled forward to 2005 following a wide-ranging and thorough review
(including site visit) by the DH and a number of external academic and
service-based reviewers. Programmes of research funded are sent out for
external peer review. Peer reviewers in the academic community do not
usually allow one to get away with research or dissemination of a kind
that might, for example, be construed as "a campaign to privatise and sell
off health care".
5. PSSRU's other funding comes from various sources. At the
LSE
these are the bodies that have funded our work over the past two years: 7
public sector funders (NHS HTA programme, NHS London Region, NHS
Information Authority, Dept of Health, Home Office, HM Treasury and
Scottish Executive); 2 international bodies (the European Commission and
the World Health Organisation); 6 organisations in the
charitable/non-profit sector (Wellcome Trust, Joseph Rowntree Foundation,
IPPR, King's Fund, Alzheimer's Research Trust, New Opportunities Fund);
and 3 private sector companies (Pfizer Ltd, Janssen and Knoll
Pharmaceuticals). Funding for research at the other two PSSRU branches has
a similar mix.
6. All three PSSRU branches have collaborative links with the
Centre for the Economics of Mental Health at the Institute of Psychiatry,
King's College London. This is a typcial research group, formally
independent of PSSRU, but with various interconnections (for a start, the
PSSRU director at LSE is also director of CEMH). CEMH is similarly funded
from a wide mix of sources, including many of the above bodies plus the
MRC, Nuffield Foundation and HEFCE.
7. PSSRU carries out empirical work which is thoroughly
grounded in theoretical constructs, and disseminates the findings as
widely as is consistent with their relevance. Just like any other academic
group, we place particular store by the peer review process. When
submitting papers to journals, we do, of course, ask journal editors to
select referees with congruent ideological positions to ourselves so as to
ensure that our utterly partial views can pass the review process
unscathed. Sadly, we don't often succeed in this ruse.
8. PSSRU has a Discussion Paper series, and paper number 1751
has just been completed. About half of these papers are turned into
journal articles, book chapters and the like. We cannot guarantee to have
read every page of every discussion paper, let alone every page of the
more than 30 books that PSSRU members have written over the years, but we
do not recall any stream of work with a focus (in Alison's words) "on
alternatives to a publicly funded NHS".
9. PSSRU has a website at the University of Kent
(www.ukc.ac.uk/PSSRU/), and links to it from other branches (eg through
www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/lsehsc or www.pssru.man.ac.uk) and it also has an
annual(ish) Bulletin (next one early 2002 - order your free copy now or
download from the website) which can tell you all the interesting things
about the Unit and its activities that this boring list of facts cannot
approach. In particular, the Bulletin and websites provide precisely the
kind of evidence base about our research, its funding and its findings
that Alison might perhaps have consulted before posting remarks to the
Public Health mail group that caused great offence to us and our
colleagues.
10. PSSRU has someone at each site who would be delighted to
provide further clarification about the Unit's work and - where it proves
necessary - to correct inaccurate views about the research programmes and
their aims. The site directors are: Ann Netten (at Kent University,
01227-823644, [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>), David
Challis (at Manchester University, 0161-275-5222, [log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) and Martin Knapp (at LSE, 020-7955-6225,
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>).
Martin Knapp, Julian Le Grand, David McDaid
__________________________________________________________________
Alison Macfarlane
St Bartholomew School of Nursing and Midwifery
20 Bartholomew Close
West Smithfield Tel 0207 040 5832
London EC1A 7QN Email [log in to unmask]
_________________________________________________________________
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