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Describes an audit of inter‐profession communications among hospital, community health and social services concerning hospital admission. Information from 150 patient admissions (50 from each of three general practices after a target date) was gathered from both community and hospital sources. The results were used to audit the transfer policy operated by Airedale NHS Trust. The audit design incorporated an element of research, the results of which were used to inform the interpretation of the audit results and to suggest appropriate recommendations for change. Recommendations included the introduction of a pre‐admissions checklist, specific changes to the nursing documentation, measures to improve the speed of information transfer, and the clarification of responsibilities for initiating contact across the hospital‐community interface when patients with existing contacts in community services are admitted to hospital. Concludes that the introduction of supplementary research to an otherwise traditional audit cycle strengthened the resulting recommendations.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the potential fruitfulness of the theory of Alasdair MacIntyre for understanding how social enterprises may facilitate well-being, using empirical evidence from doctoral research to illustrate this.

This paper is based on findings from research conducted at a mental health training and employment organisation which used gardening as rehabilitative tool. Participant observation and semi-structured interviews with staff, volunteers and service users were used to generate the data, a MacIntyrean lens used to analyse the data, and some suggestions are made as to why social enterprises may be particularly suited to such an approach.

Practitioners encouraged the seeking of “internal goods” or “goods of excellence” within practices, as it was this which was understood to facilitate well-being. Service users shared in this view, perceiving their time on the case site primarily as “work” and choosing to engage with the service out of a desire to meaningfully contribute to the community project.

This research is conducted on a small scale and therefore lacks generalisability. The lack of comparison with other organisational forms using the same practice is also a limitation.

This theory offers an alternative lens for considering how social enterprises might contribute to well-being. The data presented here also complement the growing body of research literature on Work Integration Social Enterprises, considering some of the wider well-being benefits beyond work integration, which thus far has received limited empirical attention.

Policy actors around the world are increasingly looking to the social economy – markets explicitly oriented towards meeting social needs, usually through the third sector – to underpin livelihoods and deliver welfare services. Once considered an adjunct to markets and states, and possibly even a residual, the social economy is being seen as a legitimate player in the plural economy, able to thrive through the effort of dedicated individuals and organisations committed to ethical entrepreneurship. The assumption is that future capitalism can accommodate, perhaps even requires as recession deepens, the energies of the social economy in making new markets and meeting welfare needs. While a body of research has emerged examining the economic characteristics of social enterprises and how they succeed or not in managing the interface between market and ethical priorities, little is known about what it is like to be involved in the social economy or about what different social actors gain from the experience. However, most academic and policy thinking assumes that engagement in the social economy is both rewarding and empowering. This paper aims to fill this gap.

This paper draws on sobering case evidence from Bristol relating to the experience of social entrepreneurs, employees and volunteers.

The critical question raised by this study is whether the role of the social economy should be that of returning the socially disadvantaged back into the formal economy. The evidence in this study tends to suggest that this expectation could be misguided and overly ambitious.

The paper offers insight into the backgrounds, motivations, experiences and futures of people involved in the social economy.