Edited by Michael Parker, London and New York, Routledge, 1999, 207+ix pages, £14.99 (pb).

This is the latest contribution to the excellent series on professional ethics issued by Routledge under the general editorship of Ruth Chadwick. The origin of the collection was a three-day conference at Blackpool organised by Michael Parker and Ruth Chadwick for health care professionals, social workers and ethicists on ethics and community. Some of the chapters in the collection were papers read at that conference, while others were prepared specially for this volume. The contributors are predominantly philosophers, but there are also essays from a health service manager, a senior doctor and a mental health service user. Most of the contributors are British, but there are contributors from Finland, the Netherlands, Canada and the United States. Areas of the health and social services covered include genetic counselling, mental health, care of the elderly and health services policy and management generally.

Given that most health care ethics tends to be …