TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2013//
TI  - Partnerships: survey respondents' perceptions of inter-professional collaboration to address alcohol-related harms in England
JO  - Critical public health
A1  - Thom, Betsy
A1  - Herring, Rachel
A1  - Bayley, Mariana
A1  - Waller, Seta
A1  - Berridge, Virginia
SP  - 62
EP  - 76
VL  - 23
IS  - 1
N2  - Tackling alcohol-related harms crosses agency and professional boundaries, requiring collaboration between health, criminal justice, education and social welfare institutions. It is a key component of most multi-component programmes in the United States, Australia and Europe. Partnership working, already embedded in service delivery structures, is a core mechanism for delivery of the new UK Government Alcohol Strategy. This article reports findings from a study of alcohol partnerships across England. The findings are based on a mix of open discussion interviews with key informants and on semi-structured telephone interviews with 90 professionals with roles in local alcohol partnerships. Interviewees reported the challenges of working within a complex network of interlinked partnerships, often within hierarchies under an umbrella partnership, some of them having a formal duty of partnership. The new alcohol strategy has emerged at a time of extensive reorganisation within health, social care and criminal justice structures. Further development of a partnership model for policy implementation would benefit from consideration of the incompatibility arising from required collaboration and from tensions between institutional and professional cultures. A clearer analysis of which aspects of partnership working provide 'added value' is needed.<p />
LA  - en
SN  - 0958-1596
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2012.724770
ID  - ref1
ER  -