ABSTRACT
The notion that policy decisions, whether in government or work organizations, should be rational and based on sound scientific evidence, rather than rooted in ideology and rhetoric has strong intuitive appeal. Indeed, the term evidence-based practice has become so embedded in regulatory and public health policy speak in Britain over the last decade that few question its volition or its implications. Clearly, the concept is far from new, in so far as it reflects the basic tenets of post enlightenment science, the rationalist models of economists over investment and consumption behaviour and is a fundamental principle within medicine in the trialling of drugs and treatments. However, what is new is the perspective that these principles can, and should, be applied more broadly to policy development and delivery, in government, its agencies and quangos and though embedding these principles amongst employers. Arguably, it is here that we can detect an ideological perspective, in so far as the mantra of evidence-based practice appears, in many respects, to be a uniquely British phenomenon. This is not to suggest that it is not encountered elsewhere, merely that the profile it enjoys in the UK owes much to the policy delivery model propagated under the New Labour administration (1997–2010) (Solesbury, 2001).
