The Case of the United Kingdom

This article explores the determinants of local resilience in the form of local COVID-19 mutual aid groups. These groups were formed to offer mutual help to those who had experienced a loss of social quality. We test a series of hypotheses, considering which conditional factors are most connected to the formation of these groups, particularly focusing on those that influenced the earliest and most resilient local response to the pandemic. The presence of radical environmentalist activists is a better predictor of resilient community responsiveness than either the activity of the local state or the activity of more moderate community-based environmental civil society organizations. Conclusions are presented on the implications of these findings for the future of localism, social quality, and public policy in the United Kingdom.

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La visibilidad mediática de actores políticos en la red: La política gestión de contenidos digitales y la propiedad intelectual en España y en el Reino Unido (The Media Visibility of Political Actors on the Net: The Public Policy of Digital Contents Management and Their Intellectual Property in Spain and the United Kingdom)

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.2280119 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Jorge Luis Salcedo Maldonado

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

United Kingdom ◽

Intellectual Property ◽

Political Actors ◽

The Public ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Digital Contents ◽

The Media ◽

La Red

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Impact of vaccination on new SARS-CoV-2 infections in the United Kingdom

Nature Medicine ◽

10.1038/s41591-021-01410-w ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Emma Pritchard ◽

Philippa C. Matthews ◽

Nicole Stoesser ◽

David W. Eyre ◽

Owen Gethings ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United Kingdom ◽

Viral Load ◽

Threshold Value ◽

Community Based ◽

National Statistics ◽

Private Households ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Viral Burden ◽

General Community ◽

Nose And Throat

AbstractThe effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination in preventing new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections in the general community is still unclear. Here, we used the Office for National Statistics COVID-19 Infection Survey—a large community-based survey of individuals living in randomly selected private households across the United Kingdom—to assess the effectiveness of the BNT162b2 (Pfizer–BioNTech) and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (Oxford–AstraZeneca; ChAdOx1) vaccines against any new SARS-CoV-2 PCR-positive tests, split according to self-reported symptoms, cycle threshold value (<30 versus ≥30; as a surrogate for viral load) and gene positivity pattern (compatible with B.1.1.7 or not). Using 1,945,071 real-time PCR results from nose and throat swabs taken from 383,812 participants between 1 December 2020 and 8 May 2021, we found that vaccination with the ChAdOx1 or BNT162b2 vaccines already reduced SARS-CoV-2 infections ≥21 d after the first dose (61% (95% confidence interval (CI) = 54–68%) versus 66% (95% CI = 60–71%), respectively), with greater reductions observed after a second dose (79% (95% CI = 65–88%) versus 80% (95% CI = 73–85%), respectively). The largest reductions were observed for symptomatic infections and/or infections with a higher viral burden. Overall, COVID-19 vaccination reduced the number of new SARS-CoV-2 infections, with the largest benefit received after two vaccinations and against symptomatic and high viral burden infections, and with no evidence of a difference between the BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 vaccines.

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A National Treasure? The Role of Civil Society in Promoting and Enforcing Human Rights in the United Kingdom

Journal of Human Rights Practice ◽

10.1093/jhuman/huaa046 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Harriet Samuels

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

United Kingdom ◽

Civil Society ◽

Negative Attitude ◽

Civil Society Organizations ◽

Economic Rights ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

The Impact ◽

Social And Economic Rights

Abstract The article investigates the negative attitude towards civil society over the last decade in the United Kingdom and the repercussions for human rights. It considers this in the context of the United Kingdom government’s implementation of the policy of austerity. It reflects on the various policy and legal changes, and the impact on the campaigning and advocacy work of civil society organizations, particularly those that work on social and economic rights.

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The Impact Of COVID-19 On Out-Of-Hours Adult Hospice Care: An Online Survey

10.21203/rs.3.rs-535007/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Felicity Hasson ◽

Paul Slater ◽

Anne Fee ◽

Tracey McConnell ◽

Sheila Payne ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Palliative Care ◽

United Kingdom ◽

Personal Protective Equipment ◽

Protective Equipment ◽

Community Based ◽

Out Of Hours ◽

Care Services ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Palliative Care Services ◽

The Impact

Abstract BackgroundGlobally COVID-19 has had a profound impact on the provision of healthcare, including palliative care. However, there is little evidence about the impact of COVID-19 on delivery of out-of-hours specialist palliative care services in the United Kingdom. The aim of the study is to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the delivery of out-of-hours community-based palliative care services.Methods A national online census survey of managers of adult hospices in the United Kingdom was undertaken. Survey were emailed to managers of adult hospices (n=150) who provided out-of-hours community palliative care services. Fifteen questions related specifically to the impact of COVID-19 and data were analysed thematically.ResultsEighty-one responses to the survey were returned (54% response rate); 59 were complete of which 47 contained COVID-19 data. Findings indicated that COVID-19 impacted on out-of-hours community-based palliative care. To meet increased patient need, hospices reconfigured services; redeployed staff; and introduced new policies and procedures to minimize virus transmission. Lack of integration between charitably and state funded palliative care providers was reported. The interconnected issues of the use and availability of Personal Protective Equipment (n=21) and infection control screening (n=12) resulted in changes in nursing practices due to fear of contagion for patients, carers and staff. Conclusions Survey findings suggest that due to increased demand for community palliative care services, hospices had to rapidly adapt and reconfigure services. Even though this response to the pandemic led to some service improvements, in the main, out-of-hours service reconfiguration resulted in challenges for hospices, including workforce issues, and availability of resources such as Personal Protective Equipment. These challenges were exacerbated by lack of integration with wider healthcare services. More research is required to fully understand the implications of such changes on the quality of care provided.

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Surrogacy and public policy

Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly ◽

10.53386/nilq.v72i3.981 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 72 (3) ◽

pp. 588-595

Author(s):

Elaine O’Callaghan

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

United Kingdom ◽

Supreme Court ◽

Legal Framework ◽

Commercial Surrogacy ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

The Law

The Supreme Court in the United Kingdom has held that it is not contrary to public policy to award damages in tort to fund a commercial surrogacy in another jurisdiction where this is lawful. This significant decision, in the case of Whittington Hospital NHS Trust v XX [2020] UKSC 14, will potentially have an impact on the regulation and reform of surrogacy law in the United Kingdom, Ireland and internationally. The judgment delivered by Lady Hale draws attention to multiple inconsistencies in the law, and it highlights, in particular, the need for effective regulation of domestic surrogacy. Legislators face an important and imminent challenge to reconcile the reality of commercial surrogacy with a deficient legal framework. This article seeks to highlight some of the important issues which this case has raised when considering regulation and reform of surrogacy law.

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Are “Stranger Donors” Irrational?

10.7591/cornell/9781501755439.003.0007 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 55-60

Author(s):

Martha Gershun ◽

John D. Lantos

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Public Policy ◽

United Kingdom ◽

The United States ◽

Federal Legislation ◽

Organ Donors ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Transplant Registry ◽

Altruistic Donor ◽

Psychological Benefit

This chapter seeks to understand the motivations of people who offered to donate a kidney to a stranger. It explores the degree of emotional relationship that was essential to justify the claim that donation provided a psychological benefit to the donor. The chapter also mentions a law in the United Kingdom called the Unrelated Live Transplant Registry Authority which required organ donors to provide proof that they had a relationship with the recipient. In the United States, however, there is no federal legislation or public policy regulating stranger donors. The chapter then turns to discuss a study led by nephrologist Aaron Spital showing how attitudes within the transplant community gradually shifted from almost universal rejection of stranger donors to their gradual acceptance. It assesses the struggles that nephrologists went through in trying to determine whether such altruists were noble or irrational. Ultimately, the chapter offers a unique glimpse into the motivations of an altruistic donor and into the forms of skepticism that doctors and psychologists bring to evaluations of such donors.

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The Lex Fori

The Conflict of Laws ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198838500.003.0004 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 172-194

Author(s):

Adrian Briggs

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

United Kingdom ◽

International Law ◽

Private International Law ◽

English Court ◽

Conflict Of Laws ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Foreign Law ◽

The Law

This chapter examines of the role of the lex fori in English private international law before proceeding to examine the rules of the conflict of laws applicable in an English court. Issues for which the rules of the conflict of laws select the lex fori as the law to be applied include grounds for the dissolution (as distinct from nullity) of marriage, even if the marriage has little or nothing to do with the United Kingdom; or settlement of the distribution of assets in an insolvency even though there may be significant overseas elements. Where the rules of the conflict of laws select a foreign law, its application, even though it is proved to the satisfaction of the court, may be disrupted or derailed by a provision of the lex fori instead. The remainder of the chapter covers procedural issues; penal, revenue, and public laws; and public policy.

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Engineering cohesion: a reflection on academic practice in a community‑based setting

Cultural Intermediaries Connecting Communities ◽

10.1332/policypress/9781447344995.003.0012 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 167-178

Author(s):

Arshad Isakjee

Keyword(s):

United Kingdom ◽

Academic Community ◽

Social Policies ◽

Community Based ◽

Academic Practice ◽

Self Reflection ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Heath Community ◽

Turn Over ◽

Different Parts

Social policies in the United Kingdom have undergone a ‘community turn’ over the last two decades, with emphasis increasingly on ‘community cohesion’ rather than ‘social disadvantage’ and exclusion. Whilst academics have explored this trend, there is less reflective work on academic community-based practice that operates on the same terrain. This chapter offers critical self-reflection of our academic practice within the community budgeting and commissioning phase in Balsall Heath, Birmingham. Reflecting on the processes of bringing different parts of the Balsall Heath community together for the project, we consider not just the challenges of ‘constructing community’ in this way, but also, the logics that underpin it.

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