1. Intra-Crisis Policy Transfer: the case of Covid 19 in the UK
Martin Powell and Sophie King-Hill, University of Birmingham, UK
Learning from abroad and policy transfer feature in the literature on learning (eg Bennett and Howlett 1992; Vagionaki and Trein 2019) and in health care (eg Klein 1997; Ettelt et al 2012), but it focuses on 'normal' rather than crisis policy making. This chapter brings together the literatures on learning and policy transfer with material on crisis learning in order to assess policy transfer in the Covid 19 Pandemic in the UK. The leading authors in the field of policy transfer, Dolowitz and Marsh (1996) suggested a series of questions that might be addressed: Who transfers policy? Why engage in policy transfer? What is transferred? Are there different degrees of transfer? From where are lessons drawn? What factors constrain policy transfer? They later added a further question about how the process of policy transfer related to policy "success" or "failure." (Dolowitz and Marsh 2000; cf Marsh and McConnell 2009)). However, although their titles stress 'learning' and 'lessons' (eg 'Who learns what from whom' (Dolowitz and Marsh 1996) and 'Learning from abroad' (Dolowitz and Marsh 2000)), the literature arguably say little about learning (eg Ingold and Monaghan 2016). The policy transfer literature focuses on 'normal' times, but there is little on policy transfer in a crisis, with its constituent elements of threat, uncertainty, and urgency. Conversely, it is broadly argued that lesson-drawing is one of the most underdeveloped aspects of crisis management. The literature distinguishes learning across crises and learning within a crisis, or inter-crisis and inter-crisis management, and between 'routine' and 'non-routine' or 'less routine' crises (eg Moynihan 2008, 2009). While there is some literature on inter-crisis learning from Pandemics (eg Stark 2018), the material on intra-learning during Pandemics is limited. For example, Baekkeskov and Robin (2014) claim that 'pandemic response is unique' because it was ruled by bureaucratized experts rather than by elected politicians. They argue that while natural disaster responses appear to follow a political logic, national pandemic vaccination policies follow a bureaucratic logic. However, pandemic vaccination policies diverge significantly between countries because expert judgments differ significantly. Baekkeskov (2016) focuses on the different response policies in the Netherlands and Denmark to the 2009 H1N1 'swine' influenza pandemic. The main aims explore how the main elements of learning, particularly cross-national lesson-drawing and policy transfer play out in the Covid 19 crisis. The main research questions are drawn from Dolowitz and Marsh (1996, 2000) framework (above). However, it addresses them with respect to the crisis and learning literatures. From the crisis perspective, how do threat, uncertainty, and urgency relate to policy transfer in a non-routine and intra-crisis situation? From the learning perspective, to what extent did the UK look to learn from abroad?; where did the UK look, and why?; and what did the UK learn? The material is primarily drawn from documents such as the Minutes of the scientific advisory bodies (eg SPI; NERVTAG), and associated scientific published articles (eg Lancet), Hansard Debates, media sources, and (possibly) interviews, and analysed by Interpretative Content Analysis.
2. Population health management in the NHS: what can we learn from covid-19?
Kath Checkland, University of Manchester, UK
The NHS Long Term Plan (NHS England 2019) sets out the agenda for NHS services in England for the next decade. One of the key strands of the Plan is a move towards what is called 'Populat
About the Author:
Justin Waring is Professor of Medical Sociology and Healthcare Organisation at
the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham, and is Visiting
Professor at School of Public Administration, University of Gothenburg.
Jean-Louis Denis holds the Canada research chair (tier I) on Health System
Design and Adaptation. He is Senior Scientist, Health System and Innovation at
the Research Center of the CHUM (CRCHUM), and Visiting Professor, Department
of Management, King's College London.
Anne Pedersen is Professor at Copenhagen Business School.
Tim Tenbensel is an Associate Professor at the University of Auckland's School
of Population Health.
