TY - JOUR T1 - Lessons from evaluation of the NHS white paper <em>Our Health, Our Care, Our Say</em> JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - e766 LP - e771 DO - 10.3399/bjgp11X606780 VL - 61 IS - 592 AU - Chris Salisbury AU - Kate Stewart AU - Sarah Purdy AU - Helen Thorp AU - Ailsa Cameron AU - Rachel Lart AU - Stephen Peckham AU - Michael Calnan Y1 - 2011/11/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/61/592/e766.abstract N2 - The NHS white paper Our Health, Our Care, Our Say was published by the previous UK Labour government in January 2006, describing a new strategic direction for health and social care in the community.1 This had four main goals: (a) better prevention and earlier intervention for improved health, independence, and wellbeing; (b) more choice and a stronger voice for individuals and communities; (c) tackling inequalities and improving access to services; and (d) more support for people with long-term needs.The context for these policy goals was the need, experienced by all developed countries, to remodel their healthcare systems to reflect the changing needs of their populations. In particular, the focus of health care is increasingly to support people to manage long-term health conditions at home and to reduce the number of admissions to hospital. Helping people to get more convenient and faster access to health care, providing them with more information to enable them to care for themselves, and integrating health and social care systems, are all strategies to meet this need.To achieve the policy goals, the white paper promoted a range of initiatives. The government produced a structured framework for ensuing implementation of these initiatives and tracking progress made towards the policy goals.2,3 A series of evaluations of the initiatives were commissioned, including formal programme evaluation, demonstration sites, pilot projects, and formative evaluation. This emphasis on evaluation reflected a commitment, which was increasingly evident from the late 1990s onward, to base policy on evidence about what works.4What has been learned from this programme of evaluation about the extent to which these initiatives are achieving the policy goals of the white paper? We were commissioned by the Department of Health to review the evaluations of 10 initiatives that were specifically promoted by the … ER -