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The Clinical Standards Advisory Group report on urgent and emergency admissions to hospital identified several important issues regarding emergency care. This paper examines what we know about the costs of a quality emergency service. Estimating the cost of a quality emergency service is not yet possible, but ongoing and future research should be capable of highlighting the costs of important service improvements. It must, however, be recognized that such work by itself will not automatically lead to increased funding within emergency care. Further consideration must be given to the funding arrangements for emergency care if long-term improvements are to be secured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the popular reaction to the implementation of licensing reforms in England and Wales in 2005. It characterises these events as an episode of moral panic and seeks an ideological explanation for this alarmist response. Utilising historical perspectives, the paper draws particular attention to the formative importance of the Nineteenth Century in terms of constructing contemporary public attitudes towards alcohol. This paper draws on existing sociology and social history to highlight an international and chronological pattern which suggests a connection between Victorian temperance movements and ascetic brands of Protestantism. Through a consideration of Max Weber, E.P. Thompson and a variety of primary sources, an interpretive explanation for this pattern is provided. Legal evidence, showing the growth of alcohol regulation and the partial enforcement of temperance codes of behaviour, is then used to illustrate the survival and secularisation of temperance views from the Nineteenth Century onwards. An interpretive analysis of public discourse surrounding licensing reform in 2005 provides empirical support for this argument. Attitudes to alcohol exhibited during this episode were found to bear qualitative similarities to Calvinist-inspired temperance beliefs. The paper argues that ascetic Protestant attitudes to alcohol have achieved a wide currency and now occupy a hegemonic position within secular British society. The public reaction to the implementation of the Licensing Act 2003 is thus reinterpreted as a moral panic largely constructed by ascetic Protestant beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The findings of the Barker review, which examined the reasons for the undersupply of UK housing, have important implications for the devolved constituents of the UK, including Scotland. This paper traces the emergence of the brownfield regeneration policy agenda across the UK and examines how the Barker review connects with this brownfield policy focus. The paper compares housing and brownfield policies and practices in England and Scotland, places them in an international context and elicits wider lessons for devolved governance in relation to housing policy, in terms of 'centrist-local' tensions. Estimates based on published data suggest that Barker's emphasis on increased housing supply cannot easily be reconciled with the current emphasis on brownfield development and is likely to require a return to greenfield development in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the response of the Lord Chancellor to the consultation paper "Damages of Future Loss: Giving the Courts the Power to Award Periodical Payments in Personal Injury Cases" in Great Britain. He says that the consultation paper has led to the implementation of a provision made to the Courts Bill. The author argues that the Bill gives the Lord Chancellor the power to make regulations concerning variability or review of periodical payments.

The article discusses the issuance of various reports and consultation papers with regard to health care and medico-legal issues in Great Britain. The papers include proposals for the establishment of a Council of Health Regulators and the Kennedy Report on the Bristol Inquiry which deal with several pediatric care problems and proposed solutions.

The author talks about the controversy on obstetric brachial plexus injury (OBPI) in Great Britain. He discusses several reviews on the paper written by Anthony Noble regarding the causes of OBPI. Noble claimed that OBPI may be caused by forces of labor, not by excessive traction on the fetal neck. Questions on the role of forces in OBPI are presented.

Discusses issues related to the hidden crime in Great Britain. Purpose of the British Crime Survey; Examples of crimes that are widely underreported in official statistics; Information on the Crime and Society Foundation paper entitled "Crime, Persistent Offenders and the Justice Gap."

Redundancy, delayering and other forms of organisational change have become increasingly prevalent over the last ten years. Some of the worst-hit industries during the recent years have been the former public utilities, the financial services sector and manufacturing. This paper is based on the results from the first three years' data from a five year UMIST-Institute of Management research programme which has been designed to explore the changing nature of managerial work in the UK and the impact of organisational change on managers' sense of loyalty, morale and motivation. It has been shown in the past (Sahdev and Vinnicombe 1998; Worrall, Cooper and Campbell `999) that redundancy is seen a particularly damaging form of change on survivors and that redundancy often fails to achieve the objectives on which it was justified, leaving many unintended consequences. This article discusses the effects of organisational change on surviving managers where redundancy has been used, compared with organisations where redundancy has not been used. The results suggest that if redundancy is to be continually pursued as a method of change, managers should be aware of the damaging implications not only to individuals but to the culture of the downsized organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the mass circulation of newspaper, the smaller circulation papers produced by small organizations in Great Britain and the trade-union press.

The article presents a response to a paper on labour market deregulation and economic performance in Great Britain's dock industry, which was contributed by scholar Peter Turnbull, in one of the previous issues of the journal. The author opines that the arguments given by Turnbull to support his contention that the British ports industry has suffered since the abolition of the government's Dock Labour Scheme, is based on faulty assumptions. While recognising the growing number of dockers employed at non-Scheme ports, nowhere does Turnbull seek to analyze the reasons for this trend. Further, the author opines that no examples or proofs are given by Turnbull to support his supposition that the non-Scheme ports were also havens of restrictive labour practices similar to those found in the Scheme. Further, to assert that labour costs are less of a priority to ship owners and other port users than other factors is plainly absurd. Any shipowner would have been able to tell Turnbull that labour flexibility and reliability is a vital factor in determining routing.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue related to patient safety regulation and technology in healthcare delivery, including Adam Darkin's article on practical implications of implementing telehealth services and Gordon Caldwell's paper on clinical leadership value.

Over the past thirty years there has been a significant turn towards practice and away from institutions in sociological frameworks for understanding science. This new emphasis on studying 'science in action' (Latour 1987) and 'epistemic cultures' (Knorr Cetina 1999) has not been shared by academic and policy literatures on the problem of women and science, which have focused on the marginalisation and under-representation of women in science careers and academic institutions. In this paper we draw on elements of both these approaches to think about epistemic communities as simultaneously practical and organisational. We argue that an understanding of organisational structures is missing in science studies, and that studies of the under-representation of women lack attention to the detail of how scientific work is done in practice. Both are necessary to understand the gendering of science work. Our arguments are based on findings of a qualitative study of bioscience researchers in a British university. Conducted as part of a European project on knowledge production, institutions and gender the UK study involved interviews, focus groups and participant observation in two laboratories. Drawing on extracts from our data we look first at laboratories as relatively unhierarchical communities of practice. We go on to show the ways in which institutional forces, particularly contractual insecurity and the linear career, work to reproduce patterns of gendered inequality. Finally, we analyse how these patterns shape the gendered value and performance of 'housekeeping work' in the laboratory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, whose purpose is both substantive and methodological, focuses on changes over a nine year period, drawing on data from two British birth cohorts (individuals born in 1958 and 1970), and, substantively, employs set theoretic methods to explore the extent to which an upward shift in qualifications achieved led to any reduction in the roles class and gender played in the achievement of professional, managerial and technical (PMT) social class destinations in early adulthood. Our methodological purpose is to illustrate how a counterfactual modelling approach can be used together with Ragin's set theoretic methods to provide an alternative way of analysing relationships in this area. We draw on earlier work exploring the extent to which educational achievement was 'meritocratic' with respect to ability for these cohorts (Cooper 2005, 2006). Our configurational account of the causal pathways to various class destinations is set against the background of a simple model of 'meritocracy' (allocation to available class positions by qualifications alone taking account of the empirical marginal distributions). This model allows us to specify, counterfactually, what qualifications would have represented necessary and sufficient conditions in our modelled meritocracy for reaching the PMT class. By comparison of these conditions with the empirically derived necessary and sufficient conditions for achieving these outcomes (using Ragin et al's fs/QCA software) we show that while allocation processes were far from meritocratic in both cohorts, there were some changes in the way both class and gender combined with qualifications as conditions for destinations. We also show that Ragin's configurational methods, focussing on holistically-conceived cases and conjunctural causation rather than on the net effects of independent variables, provide a useful analytic technique for capturing relationships in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is imperative that an appropriate balance is reached between three key principles: equality, diversity and social cohesion. In many countries across the world, however, there is a discernible move away from a concern for equality and diversity as the problem of order looms larger. I shall focus here on Britain in presenting my central thesis that there is a very real danger that a new nationalist discourse centred on community cohesion and integration is trouncing any duties on us to promote racial equality and respect cultural diversity. The paper comprises three sections. I shall firstly identify a radical hour when there was for the first time official recognition that institutional racism existed in British society and some urgency that this needed to be combated. I shall secondly highlight the fragility of such progressiveness and identify threats from the changing nature of racial discourse since 2001. Here, I shall highlight in particular how the prominence given to institutional racism, with the publication of the Macpherson report, was remarkably short lived and how multiculturalism has come under increasing attack, not least because of its purported threat to social cohesion. I shall finally offer some tentative proposals for a more positive way forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is evident that the concept of 'social capital' has recently come to the forefront of many governmental strategies aimed at combating social exclusion. In particular the interpretation of social capital used by many authors and agencies is one that emphasises the importance of not only social networks and contacts, but also a social responsibility to one's local community and wider society. Most notably it is poor people and poorer neighbourhoods that are seen to be lacking in these forms of social capital, and therefore emphasis is placed upon individual and community responsibility for tackling their own (and other's) exclusion. Drawing on in-depth interviews with women living on a deprived inner-city housing estate in the north of England, this research considers existing practices, forms and gendered nature of social capital for these women. The paper concludes that contrary to popular beliefs, many of these women already possessed forms of social capital, and specifically, that this was beneficial in helping them cope and 'get by' within their everyday experiences of social exclusion. This research highlights the potential exclusionary nature of social capital for certain individuals and the limitations of social capital in helping excluded women to escape their poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on exploratory research examining the sexual and ageing identities of gay men in England and the way in which these affect welfare needs and service use experiences. In this case, the focus is not upon the research findings per se, but on the research methods used to elucidate them. The author theorises about the ways in which the qualitative interviewing that took place was influenced by his age, homosexuality, and gender during the interaction with older gay men. The conclusions are that the shared gender and sexual orientation (although not without their differences) were crucial to the successful completion of the research and in trying to ensure participants felt valued and empowered. Therefore, it is asserted from this that increasingly reflexive research is paramount to the development of qualitative methodologies and gerontology, to ensure the academe is inclusive of diverse identities and that its research stands up to rigorous scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This piece has been written in response to a recent article published in the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) which exposed the red tape restricting health research in the UK's National Health Service (NHS). Whilst the THES article was critical of NHS ethical review and research governance, it still views a streamlined version of the process as necessary for the protection of researchers and respondents. Drawing on the recent experience of applying for ethical approval and research governance for a qualitative study on gender and genetics, this paper examines the review process and the restrictive paperwork and procedures that surround it, focusing in particular on the impact this has on social science research. The argument will be put forward that while all research, whether clinical or social, is hampered by the bureaucracy surrounding the review process, social research is further alienated by it. This is because the paperwork and processes involved are set up to evaluate clinical, not social, research. Furthermore, the process is caught up in a culture of fear that breeds mistrust towards ‘outsiders’ wishing to conduct research in the NHS. The revision of NHS ethical review has to go further than mere bureaucratic streamlining - it needs to be made more relevant and accessible to health researchers working across a range of disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years there has been much political debate in the popular media about the fate of the nuclear family in the UK. Very little work has been done, using population data, to actually demonstrate the decline, or indeed continuance of this type of household formation. In this paper we use Office for National Statistics (ONS) longitudinal census data, from England and Wales, to explore the formation, dissolution and continuance of the nuclear family household over a twenty year period (1981-2001). Our findings indicate a continuing importance of this household arrangement, however routes into and trajectories from nuclear family households take different forms for men and women across the life course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the role of Supporters Direct, a sports policy initiative developed by the British Labour government in 2000 in Great Britain. Supporters Direct aims to democratize football clubs by intervening on the unequal relationship existing between supporters of football clubs and private shareholders who have control on clubs. The program facilitates mutual forms of ownership and control of clubs through supporters' trust. This paper concluded that Supporters Direct initiative is an integral part of a social policy that aims on the preservation and extension of commodified social relations.

The article examines the management of feminine identities in the women rugby team, Jesters, in a rural community in Great Britain. It investigates the group dynamics of identity performance and negotiation. The Jesters is evolving in a social context dominated by masculine identity and heterosexist, with enforced gender roles. The engagement of the team in rugby, a game for men, has invoked the threat of marginalization for their failure to conform to and their potential disruptions of established gender rooms. The performance of inauthentic feminine identities managed the threat pose for the whole team. This paper examines the varying interests of heterosexual and lesbian feminities involved in a potentially marginalized group.

This article presents a sociological research paper that discusses various issues related to the state of coupledom and cohabitation in contemporary normative model of sexual/ love relationships. Coupledom has come to be marked by cohabitation because of a decline in the popularity of marriage and the rise in heterosexual cohabitation. This study presents a new insight into the particular ways in which coupledom is being explored and intimacy is being changed in Great Britain. The study offers proof of a new orientation towards sexual/love relationships emerging amongst a growing section of the British population.

This article presents a sociological research paper that discusses various issues related to the practice of distance relationships over life course in Great Britain. Distance relationships can be defined as a relationship in which couples spend at least two nights a week apart, or where they remain separated for long durations on a regular basis. According to the article author, distance relationships indicate that all those media hype centered around the trend towards the practice of living alone are exaggerated. Those people who live alone may be involved in caring for others they are living with. Distance allows care to be distributed amongst a wider group of people.

This article presents a sociological research paper that discusses various issues related to the problem of singleness in Great Britain, with specific reference to single women. It is said that the recognition of the cultural shift away from the particular norms of private life and towards the individualization of the meanings associated with intimate relationships can present a better insight to understand the practice of contemporary singleness. There have been various changes in the ideas about family life, love and romance.

This article presents a sociological research paper that discusses various issues related to time use and parenting in Great Britain, which have significance for developing an understanding of the gendered distribution of time between care, work and leisure in two-parent families. The article makes specific reference to the UK Time Use Survey and the international writings on long-term trends in parental childcare time. According to the findings of the study, a shorter working week is the most needed change to be brought in to encourage greater participation by fathers in childcare.

The article informs that along with the ordination of women priests, the subject of gay rights within churches in Great Britain is probably the most controversial and challenging issue facing contemporary Christianity. In line with other elements of the gay liberation movement from the 1970s, the gay Christian movement has sought to organize and mobilize in order to extend and protect what it regards as fundamental rights. The principal organization in Great Britain is the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM). Most LGCM supporters are largely liberal in orientation, both politically and theologically, regarding a number of other key issues in the church and put a great deal of emphasis on related social programmes. This paper considers those groups that have mobilized themselves against the gay Christian cause.

The article presents news briefs concerning legal issues related to medical care in Great Britain. A White Paper will be released in early 2002 on options for reforming the processing of clinical negligence claims and reducing costs associated with such claims. The Council for the Regulation of Healthcare Professionals has been created to supervise the work of several regulatory bodies. Drug labeling proposals have been announced by the Committee on Safety of Medicines.