This edited text is the second in a series entitled the Sociology of Health Professions: Future International Directions, published by Policy Press and edited by Mike Saks and Mike Dent, supported by a high-profile international advisory board. The research-based series is focused on giving innovatory sociological insights into the past, present and future development of the health professions. It is mainly oriented towards final year and postgraduate students, academic lecturers/researchers, practitioners and policy makers. In filling a major gap in the literature as the first social scientific text on the role of support workers operating with health professions in the provision of health care, it is resonant with the template for the general Policy Press series on the sociology of the health professions in that it aims:

• • to inform and stimulate debate about issues in the sociology of health professions;

• • to influence policy development and practice in the fields concerned;

• • to make a significant contribution to academic thinking in the sociology of health; and

• • to produce original national/international work of high quality.

The significance of the current volume on Support Workers and the Health Professions in International Perspective: The Invisible Providers of Health Care is underlined by the need to give more attention to health support workers in light of their growing importance in working with health professions in providing health care in Western societies and beyond. The special significance of this collection, introduced by Mike Saks as editor, is that the various expert contributions assembled here come together as part of the inaugural social science book on support workers operating in conjunction with health professions in health care, which has ramifications for all modern societies. As such, with both substantial academic and regulatory and other policy implications, it fits well into the Policy Press series on the sociology of the health professions. This is the second book in the series following the first, edited by John Martyn Chamberlain, Mike Dent and Mike Saks, on Professional Health Regulation in the Public Interest: International Perspectives. More commissioned work in the series is to come in the near future on subjects such as the allied health professions, dentistry and medical policy in an international context.