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This systematic review suggests that there is not yet any clear evidence of the effects of public health partnerships on health outcomes. More appropriately designed and timed studies are required to establish whether, and how, partnerships are effective.

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. 'What Counts is What Works'? New Labour and Partnerships in Public HealthNeil Perkins, Katherine Smith, David J Hunter, Clare Bambra, Kerry Joyce. Durham UniversityKey words: partnership, public health, health inequalities.Word count: 7,998. AbstractPartnership working has been a central feature of New Labour"s approach to the delivery of health and social policy since 1997. A number of partnership based initiatives have centred on reducing health inequalities and improving health. This paper reports on the findings from a systematic review of the impact of partnership working on public health, and considers whether these partnerships have delivered better health outcomes for local/target populations.It finds that there is little evidence that partnerships have produced better health outcomes for local/target populations or reduced health inequalities.

This article examines the effectiveness of the multi-agency approach in adult protection and draws on findings from research that examined the effectiveness of both partnership working and perceptions of the regulatory framework to protect vulnerable adults. The research findings were collected through the use of a survey of all local councils with social services responsibilities in England and Wales. Examples of good practice in partnership working were found. However, resource pressures, insufficient information sharing and a lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities were reported to hinder a multi-agency approach.

BackgroundThe discussion that commenced in the United Kingdom around the New Labour government' s emphasis on 'partnerships' as an essential theme of its 'third way' occupies a prominent place in health and social care literature (see Lymbery, 2006;Clarke & Glendinning, 2002;Glasby & Dickinson, 2008). Partnership working has become a central feature of all public services (Balloch & Taylor, 2001), and is also a major element of the modernisation agenda (see DoH, 2007).Although partnership or multi-agency working (often described as inter-agency working, co-ordination or collaboration) can be seen as a rational response to divisions