Professional Health Regulation in the Public Interest: International Perspectives

Bringing together leading academics worldwide, this book - the first in Policy Press’s Sociology of Health Professions series - compares and critically examines the ways in which different countries are regulating healthcare in general, and health professions in particular, in the interest of users and the wider public. There are significant variations in how healthcare systems and health professionals are regulated globally but one feature that they increasingly share is an emphasis on the value of including members of the public in quality assurance processes. While many argue that this will help better serve the public interest, others question how far the changing regulatory reform agenda is still dominated by medical interests.