It is with great delight and a little trepidation that we write our first editorial for the Journal of Health Organisation and Management. We have watched as JHOM has developed from the early days of the Journal of Management in Medicine, edited by David Hunter, to the established journal that we inherit today. We would like to thank Nancy Harding, Jackie Ford, Hugh Lee and David Hunter for all their hard work and custodianship of the journal. JHOM has flourished under their editorial guidance and has transitioned from being a small, niche journal into a widely read, truly international journal, that attracts papers and readers from all over the world.

As an illustration of the achievements achieved under the previous editorial teams downloads of articles per year have increased from around 30,000 in 2005 to nearly 100,000 in more recent years and JHOM is indexed or abstracted by key sources such as ASSIA, MELINE and SCOPUS. I’m sure you’ll agree with us that these are significant achievements. JHOM has also been added to some important ranking lists including; the Aston Business School list (where it is ranked as a 1), the Australian Business Dean’s Council list (where it is ranked as a C) and the Australian Research Council list (where it is ranked as a C). The JHOM editorial and publishing team will be working to increase these journal rankings in the coming years. Once again, we wish the former editors all best wishes and are pleased that Dr Jackie Ford and Professor Nancy Harding have agreed to continue on the Editorial Advisory Board. We thank both for their continued support.

The new editorial team

Just as in previous years JHOM/JMM had strong links to the Nuffield Institute for Health at the University of Leeds and then at the University of Bradford’s School of Management, it is now primarily hosted by the University of Birmingham’s Health Services Management Centre (HSMC). HSMC is the leading UK centre providing a combination of research, teaching, professional development and consultancy to health and social care agencies. The editorial team comprises two co-editors and two associate editors and details of the team are set out below.

Co-editors

Dr Helen Dickinson is Senior Lecturer in Health Care Policy and Management at the Health Services Management Centre, and a Senior Researcher for the Third Sector Research Centre, University of Birmingham. Helen heads HSMC’s health and social care partnerships research programme and is Director of Academic Programmes. Helen’s research interests are around inter-agency collaboration, leadership, priority setting and decision making, and the role of the third sector in health and social care. Helen has authored, co-authored or edited seven books on these topics including the Better Partnership Working book series.

Dr Suzanne Robinson is a Lecturer in Health Economics and Health Services Management (HSMC) at the University of Birmingham. She enjoys a wide portfolio of research interests around commissioning, service improvement and patient and public involvement with a particular interest around priority setting in health and social care. Her PhD explored the validity of quality of life measures used to inform priority setting decisions. Suzanne also co-leads the commissioning and priority setting work streams at HSMC and is Chair of Academic Programmes.

Associate Editors

Professor Russell Mannion is Professor of Health Systems at the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham. He is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Oslo and the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Russell has published widely in health services research and provides policy and economic advice to a range of national and international health care agencies.

Dr Iestyn Williams is a Lecturer at the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham. He co-leads HSMC’s commissioning work programme and currently sits on the editorial board of Health and Social Care in the Community. Before joining HSMC, Iestyn worked in NHS management and as a service development worker in the third sector. Iestyn is widely published in both academic and practitioner books and journals. His particular research interests include: priority setting in health and social care; theories of policy decision making; health care in an international context; innovation in health care organizations, and; public sector partnerships.

Plans for the journal

Editorial transition offers an opportunity for change, although a key priority for the new editorial team is to continue many of the positive developments introduced by the previous editors. As you might expect the new team have come brimming with ideas about how we might take JHOM forward. However, we want to be careful to maintain all that is good within the journal, and to build on this rather than starting from fresh. As such, we are in the process of conducting a survey of existing contributors and readers to find out what is most valued about the journal and how we can build on this success. You will hear more from us about planned changes in future editions, but expect to see the launch of some exciting new features in the near future.

Our priorities with regard to core themes are in many ways encapsulated in the journal’s title. Although our primary focus should be on the health domain, this is understood in the widest possible sense. We believe that truly high quality health services can only be provided when working in conjunction with a range of individuals and organisations, not all of whom are conventionally seen as insiders to health care organisations. We therefore welcome articles that explore the particularities of individual health systems and also those adopting comparative approaches to investigate themes and questions that apply across systems and sectors.

The ways in which health care systems and institutions organise their practices also remains a key concern for JHOM. By this we mean the types of structures, strategies, cultures, functions and values that are woven into the fabric of health care organisations. Clearly, there are many different ways of researching these topics and the journal welcomes contributions from a wide range of social sciences including sociology, economics psychology politics and business and management studies in order to fully understand these issues.

Approaches to management practice have been, and will remain, another core theme of JHOM in the months and years to come. Of those articles that most often appear in our “most downloaded list”, a large proportion directly address issues of management and leadership. Often, these papers make use of theoretical models that go beyond post-positivist approaches and seek to engage with feminist and critical theories. These have been a positive feature of the journal in the past, that have marked it out from others in the field. We wish to encourage more of this in the future.

In addition to connecting with existing users of the journal, we have also sought to refresh the Editorial Advisory Board. For those who have recently stepped down we thank you for your contribution. We are currently in negotiations with a range of individuals in an attempt to broaden board membership and to ensure that we continue to recruit internationally renowned, high calibre individuals who will help us take JHOM forward into the future.

The new editorial team would be delighted to hear from you if you have: ideas about how you would like to see JHOM change and develop; suggestions for special editions; or have any questions. You can contact us at: jhom@contacts.bham.ac.uk

The papers in this issue

Although the articles that appear in this issue of the journal were reviewed and accepted under the previous editors, for us they encapsulate many of the qualities of the journal that we wish to strengthen. JHOM has truly international reach and this is highlighted by the fact that in this issue alone there are contributors from Scotland, Finland, Ghana, England and Southern Africa tackling topics of cross-country resonance and interest. These papers also employ multiple methodological approaches and theoretical frameworks to make sense of topics ranging from the delivery of HIV/AIDS services in sub-Saharan Africa to the culture of community pharmacy organisations. This issue therefore exemplifies the depth and the breadth of substantive and methodological coverage that we seek to promote in the future.

Helen Dickinson, Suzanne Robinson, Russell Mannion, Iestyn Williams

May 2011

Thank you to the outgoing editorial team

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