¹School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Durham, 32 Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HN, UK. E-mail: ian.greener@durham.ac.uk

Abstract

This paper critically examines the UK government's approach to long-term sickness, the 'Expert Patient', examining its relationship to the 'Third Way' project, its social theoretical underpinnings, the motivations for wishing to introduce it and the dangers of assuming that the pilot studies that have been carried out in the US and UK for the scheme are generalisable across the population of those with long-term conditions. Instead, it considers the nature of the dependent relationship between the long-term ill and the state, and asks why governments have come to be so averse to it, and asks who should be responsible for care decisions in healthcare.