JOURNAL – International Long-term Care Policy Network ILPN

The Journal of Long-Term Care is an international, multi- and inter-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, online journal established as a focus for advancing the research evidence base for all aspects of long-term care for adults

Funded by the NIHR School for Social Care Research, its range includes empirical papers and theoretical discussions relevant to policy and practice, and methodological papers about improving methods in social care research.

The editorial board welcomes submissions of high quality, original articles that fit with the Journal’s remit. We will consider articles that are also relevant to the care of children and younger people where there is clear relevance for adult care (e.g. concerning issues of families or transititons into adult care).

There is no fee for submitting or publishing articles. All articles are published online as open access on the journal’s website to encourage maximum impact for all work.

Original articles are considered on any aspect of long term care practice, research, policy, theory, systems of care, methods and education. This includes empirical research papers (including quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods papers), modelling, theoretical discussions, policy commentaries, comparative analyses, and reviews of subject areas.
All correspondence should be addressed to the editor at: Journal.of.Long-Term.Care@lse.ac.uk.
Correspondence should be sent to the same address electronically as far as possible. If it is necessary to send by post, the address is: The Editor, Journal of Long Term Care, PSSRU, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE.
All books for review should be sent to the same address.
There is no upper word limit on articles that we will publish as long as they are of high quality. A guide is that articles should be between 3,000 and 5,000 words, excluding abstract, tables and figures, notes and bibliography/references. Other formats such as longer or shorter articles, and linked, short debate (point/counterpoint) articles are encouraged. If you have ideas for such articles, please check with the journal editor before writing them.
Appendices to articles are not allowed. Links embedded in articles to other relevant materials are encouraged.
Authors are advised to follow specific guidance on writing up specific methodologies e.g. the CONSORT statement for RCTs (http://www.consort-statement.org/) and the PRISMA statement for systematic reviews and met-analyses (http://www.prisma-statement.org/).
Authors are expected to ensure the integrity of their submitted articles. Where research is reported it should conform to good ethical practice. It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that all appropriate research ethics and governance processes have been adhered to and that the necessary permissions were obtained for the research. It is also the responsibility of the authors to ensure that material in the article requiring specific copyright permission has the necessary approval. Submission of an article is taken to imply that it has not been previously published in a journal, or is not being considered for publication elsewhere. Authors should note in an acknowledgement sources of funding for the paper and associated work, and any potential conflicts of interest they may have relevant to the content of the article.
Contributions should be accompanied by an abstract of up to 250 words, plus up to six key words, and details of any acknowledgements. Abstracts should disclose the substantive argument or finding of the article and not merely its subject and formal structure. The structure for abstracts is:

Context – briefly set out the pertinent context and issues.
Objective(s) – succinctly set out the objective(s) of the paper.
Method(s) – describe the approach used to address the purpose of the article.
Findings – describe the key findings.
Limitations – discuss the main limitations of the work.
Implications – argue the implications of the paper for adult social care practice, policy and/or future research.
Key words – up to 6 relevant key words to help people find the article
Acknowledgements & Declarations – acknowledgements of funding and other contributions to the paper and declarations of, for example, potential conflicts of interest.
Contact details of an author for correspondence.

In terms of authorship of papers, be guided by existing good practice such as http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html. In these guidelines, authorship is defined as satisfying all four of these points:
- Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
- Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
- Final approval of the version to be published; AND
- Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Please provide contact details for one of the authors to be published for potential correspondence with readers.
Contributions should conform exactly to the style of the Journal of Long-Term Care, and authors should check the format of their own contribution with that of recent content in the journal, paying particular attention to references and tables. Articles should be written clearly in UK English, with consistent spelling throughout, and to a publishable standard. Authors for whom English is not their first language are encouraged to have their articles proof-read by a professional proof-reader or a native English speaker with publishing experience.
The editorial team is happy to advise authors on the most suitable terminology to use e.g. on sensitive issues, avoiding discriminatory terms, and finding the most internationally recognised phrases.
Such notes as are essential to the arguments in the paper should be referred to in numerical order throughout the text and the numbers shown as superscript. These notes should be placed after the body of the text and before the references.
References must be in the Harvard style. They should be arranged alphabetically under author(s) name(s) and then in chronological order if several papers by the same author(s) are cited. The full title of the paper must be given together with the first and last page numbers. Book titles should be followed by the place of publication and the publisher. Only list references used in the main article. References in the text of the article should be cited with author’s/authors’ name(s) and year of publication (i.e. (Jones, 2000)), and with page numbers for specific quotations.
Articles published represent the views of the author(s) and not necessarily of the Journal’s Editorial Board or the publisher.

Tables and figures should be clearly laid out and designed to fit onto a page 234 mm by 155 mm.

Vertical lines between columns should be omitted, and horizontal lines limited to the top and bottom of the table, with an additional one below the column headings.

Totals and percentages should be labelled, and units identified.

Line artwork should be supplied in tif or eps format, resolution 1200 dpi at final size.

Combination artwork (line/tone) should be supplied in tif or eps format, resolution: 800 dpi at final size.

All new submissions to the journal should be sent in UK English in electronic format to Journal.of.Long-Term.Care@lse.ac.uk as an attached file in Word, text or rich text format. Tables and figures should be sent in separate attached files.

Papers should be anonymised, ready for forwarding to referees and accompanied by a covering email giving full contact details and position(s) held by the author(s). Where papers have more than one author, the contact author should be clearly specified.

Submitted articles will be triaged by the editor. If deemed appropriate to the aims and purpose of the journal, the editorial board will then usually seek two peer reviews of the anonymised article. In the light of these reviews the editor will make a decision about whether or not they wish to accept the article. Authors will be asked to respond to the anonymised feedback from reviewers.

First proofs will be sent to the contact author as a .pdf document. This is the final opportunity to correct errors, but without substantially altering the accepted paper.

As this journal is electronic only, paper offprints are not supplied to authors. Upon publication the corresponding author will receive a pdf file of their article. This can be freely shared with others. We encourage authors to link to the paper on the journal website.

Contributors of accepted articles will be asked to assign their copyright, on certain conditions, to the Journal of Long-Term Care, to help protect their material.

By submitting your paper to the Journal you are agreeing that the journal may retain and use your email address for further correspondence about the journal and its host the International Long-Term Care Policy Network (ILPN).