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ObjectiveTo identify the key themes for evaluating the quality of initiatives to engage patients and family caregivers in decision-making across the organisation and system domains of healthcare systems.MethodsWe conducted a scoping review. Seven databases of journal articles were searched from their inception to June 2019. Eligible articles were literature reviews published in English and provided useful information for determining aspects of engaging patients and family caregivers in decision-making to evaluate. We extracted text under three predetermined categories: structure, process and outcomes that were adapted from the Donabedian conceptual framework. These excerpts were then independently open-coded among four researchers. The subsequent themes and their corresponding excerpts were summarised to provide a rich description of each theme.ResultsOf 7747 unique articles identified, 366 were potentially relevant, from which we selected the 42 literature reviews. 18 unique themes were identified across the three predetermined categories. There were six structure themes: engagement plan, level of engagement, time and timing of engagement, format and composition, commitment to support and environment. There were four process themes: objectives, engagement approach, communication and engagement activities. There were eight outcome themes: decision-making process, stakeholder relationship, capacity development, stakeholder experience, shape policy/service/programme, health status, healthcare quality, and cost-effectiveness.ConclusionsThe 18 themes and their descriptions provide a foundation for identifying constructs and selecting measures to evaluate the quality of initiatives for engaging patients and family caregivers in healthcare system decision-making within the organisation and system domains. The themes can be used to investigate the mechanisms through which relevant initiatives are effective and investigate their effectiveness.

Janet McLean explores how the common law has personified the state and how those personifications affect and reflect the state's relationship to bureaucracy, sovereignty and civil society, the development of public law norms, the expansion and contraction of the public sphere with nationalization and privatization, state responsibility and human rights. Treating legal thought as a variety of political thought, she discusses writers such as Austin, Maitland, Dicey, Laski, Robson, Hart, Griffith, Mitchell and Hayek in the context of both legal doctrine and broader intellectual movements.

IntroductionTo advance person- and family-centred healthcare, government initiatives have supported the engagement of patients and family caregivers in decision-making in healthcare systems. There is, however, no consensus on how to define success for such initiatives. This scoping review aims to identify the key elements for defining the quality of patient and family caregiver engagement in decision-making across the engagement domains (individual, community/organisation, system) of British Columbia’s healthcare system. We will use those elements to develop a conceptual evaluation framework.Methods and analysisThis scoping review follows Arskey and O’Malley’s methodology. (1) The research question was identified through team discussions. (2) Articles for data source will be identified using a librarian-informed search strategy for seven bibliographic databases as well as grey literature sources. (3) Selected articles will be relevant to the evaluation of patient and family caregiver engagement in healthcare systems. (4) Two researchers will independently extract data into predefined and emerging categories. (5) The researchers will reconcile and organise the identified elements. The research team’s collective perspective will then refine the elements, and select, interpret and summarise the results. (6) Persons from key stakeholder groups will be consulted to refine the emergent conceptual framework.Ethics and disseminationWe will seek ethics approval for the stakeholder consultation. This study follows an integrated knowledge translation approach. The results will inform evaluation of the Patients as Partners Initiative of the British Columbia Ministry of Health, and will be disseminated as a scientific article, a research brief, and presentations at conferences and stakeholder meetings.

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the New Zealand government has acted to restrict individual freedoms. The legality of the government's actions has been the subject of public attention and litigation in the courts. In this article, we take a theoretical view of the question of legality in times of emergency. We characterise the challenges that emergencies pose to the ordinary legal constraints on public power, such as formal limitations requiring statutory authorisation, protection of individual rights, and institutional safeguards against abuse. We then relate these challenges to timeless questions in legal theory, including questions about the subjection of political power to legal rules, about the differences between mere pretence and robust commitments to legality, and about law's legitimate authority and its legitimate coercion. Focusing on questions most relevant to the New Zealand context, we first examine the values associated with the authorisation of governmental action by legal rules, and explain why a formal fixation on 'authorisation' is not enough to serve these values. We then show how legality's value in supporting law's authority and guarding against illegitimate coercion depends (at least in part) upon its even operation amidst the contextual and contested realities of the exercise of public power.