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This study examined people's perceptions and behaviours in relation to planning for their social care needs, and their values and priorities concerning how social care should be funded. Eight deliberative focus groups were conducted in May 2018 with 53 participants, aged 25–82 years, in London, Manchester and rural locations near York and Sheffield. Multiple uncertainties created barriers to planning for social care needs including not knowing how much to save, not thinking it possible for an average person to save enough to meet significant needs, reluctance to plan for something potentially unnecessary, lack of suitable and secure ways of saving, and a perception of social care policy as unsettled. Participants also had significant concerns that they would not be able to obtain good‐quality care, regardless of resources. In addition, it was commonly thought unrealistic to expect families to provide more than low‐intensity, supplementary care, while use of housing assets to pay for care was considered unfair, both for home‐owners who could lose their assets and non‐home‐owners who were left reliant on the state although it was more acceptable where people were childless or had substantial assets. Participants thought any new arrangements should be inclusive, personally affordable, sustainable, transparent, good‐quality and honest. They preferred to contribute regularly rather than find considerable sums of money at times of crisis, and preferred to risk‐pool, with everyone obliged or heavily encouraged to contribute. Transparency was valued so those better at ‘working the system’ were not able to benefit unfairly  and participants wanted to know that, if they contributed, they would be assured of good‐quality care. Trust in Government and other institutions, however, was low. New funding arrangements should incorporate measures to increase transparency and trust, be clear about the responsibilities of individuals and the state, provide meaningful options to save, and place significant focus on improving actual and perceived care quality. For acceptability, proposals should be framed to emphasise their affective dimensions and positive values.

Background: Providing healthcare professionals with health surveillance data aims to support professional and organisational behaviour change. The UK Five Year Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Strategy 2013 to 2018 identified better access to and use of surveillance data as a key component. Our aim was to determine the extent to which data on antimicrobial use and resistance met the perceived needs of health care professionals and policy-makers at national, regional and local levels, and how provision could be improved. Methods: We conducted 41 semi-structured interviews with national policy makers in the four Devolved Administrations and 71 interviews with health care professionals in six locations across the United Kingdom selected to achieve maximum variation in terms of population and health system characteristics. Transcripts were analysed thematically using a mix of a priori reasoning guided by the main topics in the interview guide together with themes emerging inductively from the data. Views were considered at three levels-primary care, secondary care and national-and in terms of availability of data, current uses, benefits, gaps and potential improvements. Results: Respondents described a range of uses for prescribing and resistance data. The principal gaps identified were prescribing in private practice, internet prescribing and secondary care (where some hospitals did not have electronic prescribing systems). Some respondents underestimated the range of data available. There was a perception that the responsibility for collecting and analysing data often rests with a few individuals who may lack sufficient time and appropriate skills. Conclusions: There is a need to raise awareness of data availability and the potential value of these data, and to ensure that data systems are more accessible. Any skills gap at local level in how to process and use data needs to be addressed. This requires an identification of the best methods to improve support and education relating to AMR data systems.

Background There is a social expectation that dentists demonstrate professionalism. Although the General Dental Council puts it at the heart of their regulatory agenda, there is not yet consensus on the meaning and implications of the term. Objective To explore practising dentists’ understanding of the character traits commonly associated with professionalism and what these mean in practice. Method Constructivist grounded theory was employed throughout this study. Qualitative, in-depth interviews were conducted with dental professionals in England recruited through theoretical sampling to saturation point. Interviews used a topic guide informed by the literature, and analysis was conducted through constant comparison during data collection. Results The study found that traits commonly associated with professionalism in the literature were difficult for dentists to define clearly or operationalise in a clinical setting. There was disagreement over how some traits should be understood, and it was unclear to participants how, or indeed if, the listed traits were directly relevant to practice in their current form. Conclusion Rather than expecting unconditional adherence to an externally imposed definition, further exploration is required to understand how health professionals make sense of professionalism by reference to their lived experiences and worldviews. In Brief Institutional expectations of professionalism, defined through character traits and behaviours, do not appear to map neatly on to the experiences of dental professionals. Straightforward, apparently uncontroversial terms elicited a wide range of responses, including disagreement. This brought in to question whether achieving consensus is possible. Analysing how our respondents understood the terms by reference to the meanings they constructed from lived experience offers deeper insights.