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In January 2021, we assessed the implications of temporary regulations in the United Kingdom allowing pubs and restaurants to operate on a takeaway basis without instigating a change of use. Local authorities (LAs) across the North‐East of England were unaware of any data regarding the take‐up of these regulations, partially due to ongoing capacity issues; participants also raised health concerns around takeaway use increasing significantly. One year on, we repeated the study aiming to understand the impact of these regulations on the policy and practice of key professional groups. Specifically, we wanted to understand if LAs were still struggling with staff capacity to address the regulations, whether professionals still had public health trepidations, and if any unexpected changes had occurred across the local food environment because of the pandemic. We conversed with 16 public health professionals, planners and environmental health officers across seven LAs throughout the North‐East of England via focus groups and interviews. Data collated were analysed via an inductive and semantic, reflexive‐thematic approach. Through analysis of the data, three themes were generated and are discussed throughout: popular online delivery services as a mediator to increased takeaway usage; potential long‐term health implications and challenges; continued uncertainty regarding the temporary regulations. This paper highlights important changes to local food environments, which public health professionals should be aware of, so they are better equipped to tackle health inequalities across urban and sub‐urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The United Kingdom and Australia have developed highly divergent policy responses to electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). To understand the historical origins of these differences, we describe the history of tobacco control in each country and the key roles played in setting ENDS policy in its early stages by public health regulations and policy networks, anti‐smoking organizations, 'vaper' activist networks and advocates of harm reduction policies towards injecting drug use. Methods: We analysed key government reports, policy statements from public health bodies and non‐government organizations (e.g. cancer councils and medical organizations) on ENDS; submissions to an Australian parliamentary inquiry; media coverage of policy debates in medical journals; and the history of tobacco control policy in Australia and England. Key discourses about ENDS were identified for each country. These were compared across countries during a multi‐day face‐to‐face meeting, where consensus was reached on the key commonalities and divergences in historical approaches to nicotine policy. This paper focuses on England, as different policy responses were apparent in constituent countries of the United Kingdom, and Scotland in particular. Results: Policymakers in Australia and England differ markedly in the priority that they have given to using ENDS to promote smoking cessation or restricting smokers' access to prevent uptake among young people. In understanding the origins of these divergent responses, we identified the following key differences between the two countries' approaches to nicotine regulation: an influential scientific network that favoured nicotine harm reduction in the United Kingdom and the absence of such a network in Australia; the success of different types of health activism both in England and in Europe in opposing more restrictive policies; and the greater influence on policy in England of the field of illicit drug harm reduction. Conclusions: An understanding of the different policy responses to electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) in England and Australia requires an appreciation of how actors within the different policy structures, scientific networks and activist organizations in each country and region have interpreted the evidence and the priority that policymakers have given to the competing goals of preventing adolescent uptake and encouraging smokers to use ENDS to quit smoking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Childcare policy responses towards Covid-19 differed in European welfare states. • Policy responses cause informalization of childcare to different degrees. • Informalization of childcare is mainly connected with social risks for women. • Cultural and institutional differences help to understand varying policy responses. The closure of extra-familial childcare facilities by European governments in 2020 was an important part of interventions against the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. One consequence was that childcare was provided by parents at home, mainly by women. As a result, women mainly experienced financial and employment risks related to this "informalization" of childcare. The childcare policies of European welfare states differ in the extent to which they include measures to reduce the social risks related to informalization. Against this backdrop, this paper asks: How should one understand cross-national differences in childcare policies during the pandemic? We are also particularly interested in the effects of childcare policies on the social risks connected with the informalization of childcare and what these mean for the gendered division of paid work and care. Differences in childcare policies during the pandemic are commonly explained in terms of the path dependence of such policies. Using the theoretical approach of "care arrangement," this article introduces a broader theoretical framework that considers the role of cultural and institutional factors for understanding the cross-national differences in childcare policies during the pandemic. We introduce the findings of a comparative empirical study of childcare policies in three European welfare states—Denmark, Germany and England—that represent different types of care arrangements. This paper uses policy and media documents, quantitative data on childcare and women's employment, cultural ideas and secondary analysis of empirical studies. We find that governments did not per se respond to the pandemic based on institutional path dependence regarding childcare policies, while the integration of culture into the theoretical framework allows for a more comprehensive understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction to a paper printed in a prior issue is presented, written by Berridge et al., which discusses policy around electronic nicotine delivery systems.

Prison settings have been neglected in the growing literature on drug-related deaths. This paper explores policy and practice issues regarding the governance of drug-related deaths in prisons in England and Wales from 2015-2021. Thematic documentary analysis was conducted on national level policy documents published between 2015-2021 (e.g. drug strategies, prison policy documents, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons and Prison and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) annual reports and guidance for staff). At the local (prison) level, all of the PPO fatal investigation reports and their associated action plans relating to 171 drug-related deaths from 2015-2021 were analysed thematically. Various modes of governance were identified using Head's 'wicked problems' conceptual framework including avoidance and denial, coercive controls, compartmentalised micro-management, incremental and pragmatic adjustment and technocratic problem-solving. There was strong evidence of the dominance of denial of the problem of drug-related deaths, coercive controls, micro-management and reliance on technological solutions in the early years (2015-2018). In some prisons, there developed a move towards the adoption of more pragmatic and incremental policies and push towards comprehensive policies over time. In others, remnants of denial and coercion remained. In our analysis, the focus on new psychoactive substances came to dominate attention, to the relative neglect of other substances and of the contribution of mental and physical illness to these deaths. Staff are not equipped, supported or resourced adequately to deal with the two 'wicked problems' of increasing rates of drug use and mental illness which collide in the prison setting. The PPO investigations repeatedly recommend reducing supply and improving monitoring and surveillance and the emergency response. There is less focus on prevention and reducing demand or improving the wider environmental context and culture in which the deaths occur. Policy needs to pay more attention to the fundamental issues driving the current deterioration in conditions in prisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rationale for the principles of effective school governance in England, as set out in government regulations, has never been made explicit. This article addresses that issue and develops and proposes such principles. We argue that effective school governance secures the legitimacy of schools as institutions. Such institutional legitimacy is achieved through the institutionalization processes in which the institutional primary task is central. Effective governance is therefore concerned with overseeing and ensuring the processes of institutionalization. We identify two general principles that relate to ensuring the school's legitimacy and ensuring that the school's institutionalization processes enable it to be a legitimate institution. We also distinguish six specific principles that relate to: the school's work on the institutional primary task, the resources required and deployed for work on the institutional primary task; the school's compliance with the rules and regulations that apply to the institution; the school's conformance to the norms expected of a school; the way the school operates on a day-to-day basis in relation to wider society's expectations; calling the headteacher or principal (HT/P) to account for the functioning of the school; and ensuring the HT/P's development. Our analysis is relevant to school governance in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In England and Wales, Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs) examine domestic abuse-related deaths to identify lessons to be learned. However, their emergence as a policy initiative has been little considered. To address this gap, a thematic discourse analysis of policy documents to 2011 was undertaken, examining the justification for, and conceptualization of, DHRs before their implementation. It is argued that DHRs were constructed as a taken-for-granted good, through which multi-agency partners would generate learning while the (gendered) subject was silenced. Attending to aspirations, contradictions, and tensions in the emergence of DHRs has implications for their understanding and operationalization in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal problems can be cause and consequence of ill‐health and homelessness, necessitating efforts to integrate responses to these challenges. How to respond to legal issues within the context of health services for people who are homeless is though unclear. Groundswell piloted providing legal support to peer advocates (who have current or past experience of homelessness) and clients currently homeless in addition to their health‐focused work. A participatory action‐research design evaluated the emerging programme. Groundswell staff, both researchers and those involved in service delivery, co‐led the research alongside an external researcher. Qualitative methods were used to understand the experiences of legal support. We interviewed peer advocates and volunteers (n = 8), Groundswell clients (n = 3) and sector stakeholders (n = 3). Interviews were linked to regular reflective recorded meetings (n = 7) where Groundswell staff and researchers discussed the programme and the evaluation. Data were analysed thematically. The findings focus on three themes. First, peer advocates' and clients' legal needs involve an experience of being overwhelmed by system complexity. Second, the legal support to peer advocates aided in brokering and signposting to other legal support, in the context of a supportive organisational culture. Third, support to clients can be effective, although the complexity of legal need undermines potential for sustainable responses. In conclusion, legal support for peer advocates should be developed by Groundswell and considered by other similar agencies. Legal support to people who are currently street homeless requires significant resources and so health‐focused third‐sector organisations maybe unable to offer effective support. Other modes of integration should be pursued. Findings also have implications for how the third sector relates to the government agencies implicated in the legal challenges facing people who are homeless. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]