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Integrated care continues to be a central aim within health and social care policy in England. Personal budgets and personal health budgets aim to place service users at the centre of decision-making and are part of a wider long-term initiative working towards personalised and integrated care. Personal budgets began in social care with the national pilot programme of individual budgets, which aimed to incorporate several funding streams into one budget, but in practice local authorities limited these to social care expenditure. Personal budgets then moved into the health care sector with the introduction of a three-year personal health budgets pilot programme that started in 2009. The purpose of the paper is to explore the post-pilot implementation of personal health budgets and explore their role in facilitating service integration. We examine this through the RE-AIM framework.

During 2015 and 2016, eight organisational representatives, 23 personal health budget holders and three service providers were interviewed, 42 personal health budget support plans were collected and 14 service providers completed an online survey.

Overall, personal health budgets continued to be viewed positively but progress in implementation was slower than expected. Effective leadership, clear communication and longer-term implementation were seen as vital ingredients in ensuring personal health budgets are fully embedded and contribute to wider service integration.

The paper highlights the importance of policy implementation over the longer-term, while illustrating how the venture of personal health budgets in England could be a mechanism for implementing service integration. The findings can serve to guide future policy initiatives on person-centred care and service integration.

Examines the importance of e‐commerce in the retail economy. The analysis is placed in the broader context of economic and social change and provides a theoretical framework for evaluating the growth of e‐commerce as a major distribution channel. By exploring the results of the recently released “Household Internet survey of Canadian households”, the paper documents the actual shopping behaviour of Internet shoppers from a variety of perspectives. The Canadian experience should provide analysis with a series of benchmarks and trends on which to evaluate the adoption of e‐commerce in other markets.

A readers' guide to fiction authors. Centre for Library and Information Studies (CLAIM), Department of Library and Information Studies, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire. 1985. 207pp. UK price £10 per copy, £8 per copy for 5 or more. Overseas price £11 per copy, £9 per copy for 5 or more. isbn 0 904924 63 7.

This paper aims to explore the content of Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs) from older adult care homes to understand how safety is understood and might be measured in practice.

SARs relevant to older adult care homes from 2015 onwards were identified via the Social Care Institute of Excellence SARs library. Using thematic analysis, initial inductive coding was mapped to a health-derived safety framework, the Safety Measurement and Monitoring Framework (SMMF).

The content of the SARs reflected the dimensions of the SMMF but gaining a deeper understanding of safety in older adult care homes requires additional understanding of how this unique context interacts with these dimensions to create and prevent risks and harms. This review identified the importance of external factors in care home safety.

This study provides an insight into the scope of safety issues within care homes using the SARs content, and in doing so improves understanding of how it might be measured. The measurement of safety in care homes needs to acknowledge that there are factors external to care homes that a home may have little knowledge of and no ability to control.

The Covid-19 pandemic saw a dramatic rise in the number of people volunteering to support older people shielding at home. This study aimed to determine the processes by which volunteers were rapidly engaged in their communities and their impact on the older people who were supported and health and social care services.

The study took place in South East England between May–August 2020. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 88 participants including health and social care practitioners (n = 12), leaders of voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations (n = 25), volunteers (n = 26) and older people receiving volunteer support (n = 25). Policy and procedure documents were sourced from the VCSE organisation leaders. Data were analysed thematically according to a framework method.

The authors identified key themes of People, Process and Planning. People: volunteers had a significant, positive impact on older people in their communities, with volunteers themselves, also benefiting. Process: VCSE organisations needed to work together and with health and care providers to avoid gaps and duplication of services. VCSE organisations were able to act quickly, by-passing many complex operational procedures. However, there was a need to ensure the safety of both volunteers and older people. Planning: Looking forward, there were concerns about the long-term funding of VCSE organisations and the availability of volunteers.

This study took place during the first wave of the pandemic, hence, it provides a snapshot of how voluntary organisations operated at this time and highlights the importance of integration with health and care statutory services.

The University Affiliated Programme (UAP) aims to improve service quality by working in partnership with local services. This article Reports on the establishment and development of linked services: three services for people with learning disabilities, living in small community houses that opened in late 1999 and early 2000. The focus of resources on a small number of linked services was designed to maximise the effectiveness of the involvement of the Tizard Centre, along with the Subscriber Network. It was intended that work in the linked services would be disseminated through this network. The UAP has worked with service users and providers since 1996, during which time users have moved from a long‐stay NHS hospital to community services. The service provider is also now a private organisation. The article outlines some of the projects which have been introduced or developed in these linked services and discusses some of the issues that have arisen while working in partnership with them. The benefits of working through a UAP will also be identified.

Lyndon Jones and Ken Cropper paid a successful visit to Hong Kong in November 1983. Among the educational centres visited were:

During the Vulcan Series last year, a number of points were explored which attempted to extend current thinking and methods in the traditional training man's area of work. Some examples were given of approaches which are finding favour in certain applications. The following article describes the extension and combination of several training approaches as applied to a practical, highly skilled operator training problem.

KEN JONES of the Leeds school of librarianship, fresh from his triumphant appearance in Private eye's ‘Pseuds corner’ in December, has been bearding the la secretariat about association response to the Cinematograph & Indecent Displays Bill, insofar as its provisions may affect libraries. Readers will be aware that this proposed enactment is another of the ‘If you must do it, do it privately’ type, like the Street Offences Act in the 1950s which got London's tarts out of the alleys and up into the attics.