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Health and illness beliefs of Greek Cypriots living in London This paper describes some of the findings of a qualitative study into the health and illness beliefs of Greek Cypriots living in London. Data were collected through group and individual in-depth interviews and were analysed using the grounded theory approach of constant comparison and saturation. Two of the six themes which were identified are discussed in this paper. The findings provide the reader with important insights into Greek Cypriots' beliefs of health and illness. The paper argues that the understanding of such beliefs from a cultural perspective is vitally important for all those involved in the provision of health care to this group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. This paper is a report of a study to examine the operational impact of a police custody nursing service on healthcare delivery in one police service in the north of England. Background. Medical practitioners, trained specifically for the role of forensic medical examiner, have traditionally provided forensic and custodial medical services. However, there is a trend for police authorities in the United Kingdom to replace forensic medical examiners with custody nurses. Restructuring health care in police custody suites to a multidisciplinary team approach is a practical response to the challenges faced by an overburdened service. However, very few evaluations of the impact of a nursing addition to forensic medical services have been published. Method. One nursing service was evaluated by comparing performance indicators over a 6-months period with retrospective data from records of the traditional forensic medical examiner service. Data were extracted from 9000 calls made by the police for medical assistance across five police stations, and analysed for response and consultation times. Five custody nurses, 20 custody officers and six forensic medical examiners were also interviewed, and the study was conducted in 2003. Findings. In comparison to the traditional service, nurses demonstrated faster response times, comparable consultation times, and were perceived by custody staff as more approachable than their medical colleagues in providing handover information. Conclusion. As nurses take on the roles previously performed by medical colleagues, so it will become increasingly important to define role boundaries and assess the impact on the quality of care of detainees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

baker j.a., richards d.a.&campbell m. (2005) Journal of Advanced Nursing49(5), 522–529Nursing attitudes towards acute mental health care: development of a measurement toolThis paper reports the development, piloting and validation of a tool to measure attitudes for use with nursing staff working in acute mental health care units.The quality of care provided for service users in acute mental health care has come under both scrutiny and severe criticism. The attitudes of staff working in these environments have been cited as a contributory factor in poor care. No measure of attitudes specific to acute mental health has been reported.A 64-question measure was constructed and distributed to a sample of qualified and unqualified nurses drawn from seven mental health care units in the North of England. Exploratory factor analysis and a number of other statistical tests were performed to validate the questionnaire.Preliminary analysis reduced the original 64 questions to 37. Five components were retained, accounting for 42% of the variance, and the five rotated factors were identified. The resultant‘Attitudes Towards Acute Mental Health Scale’ (ATAMHS) achieved good internal reliability, with a Cronbach's alpha of 0·72.The construction and validation of the ATAMHS measure will enable improved understanding of the attitudes of nursing staff working in acute mental health care settings to occur. This measure is available for use in a clinical area of nursing in which attitude change is of fundamental importance for future development of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

hart a.&freeman m. (2005) Journal of Advanced Nursing49(5), 502–512Health‘care’ interventions: making health inequalities worse, not better?The aim of this paper is to present a model, the‘Effect of the Professional Ego’, which provides a psychodynamically informed analytical framework for examining professional practice in arenas where issues of inequalities need to be addressed.There is a great deal of literature on the psychosocial aspects of inequalities in health care provision. However, the impact of intrapsychic and professional cultural elements has not been explored in this context. Moreover, the body of work which does explore these elements in relation to health care workers does not address how they might impact on health inequalities.Drawing on empirical work, we discuss ways in which intrapsychic and professional cultural elements feed into the dynamic between clients and health care professionals in a way which can subvert espoused, positive client health outcomes. Based on this discussion, we propose the Effect of the Professional Ego model, which identifies two main aspects of the professional ego– the grandiose self and self-preservation– and how they influence the professional/client dynamic.Systematic self-reflection on the part of professionals would be a valuable contribution to the development of professional practice. This applies particularly to conceptualizing the links between the actions of service providers and the adverse health of clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commissioning aspect of purchasing, in the context of health care, has been heralded as an activity that will effect a shift towards a health service. According to the Department of Health (DoH), England, it will be a key factor in ensuring the ideals of the reforms; i.e. efficiency, equity and effectiveness, move from being rhetoric to reality. The importance being placed upon commissioning has implications for the functioning of each professional group. Nursing has historically been identified as relatively naive in matters outside the immediate province of patient care and has suffered from a lack of any real influence in the health policy arena. This paper attempts to describe the impact that the current emphasis on commissioning will have on nursing practice and proposes that unless nurses understand and engage in debate around the purchasing and commissioning function in health care, nursing's capacity to influence the future development of patient services will be severely limited. A framework is outlined for addressing this, thereby ensuring that nursing can proactively inform present and future commissioning agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper demonstrates how a health authority can use personnel records of nurses' working histories as an effective tool in manpower planning. Suggestions are given as to how these histories might be analysed and interpreted. Methods described range from the use of simple summary statistics and graphical methods to advanced statistical modelling techniques. Data from a study by researchers at the Centre for Applied Statistics and Department of Sociology at Lancaster University are used to give examples of these approaches. A description is also given of the practical difficulties experienced when attempting to extract the appropriate data from the health authority's personnel records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the International Cancer Nursing Congress, held from September 4-8, 1978, in London, England. The conference was sponsored by the periodical "Nursing Mirror" and the Royal Marsden Hospital. During the week, over 50 papers were delivered at the congress, which focused continually on nursing and the role of the nurse in care, particularly in the care of patients living and dying with cancer. The congress was opened by the Secretary of State for Social Services, David Ennals, MP, who also hosted a reception for the international delegates at the Savoy Hotel, London, later on the first day on behalf of Her Majesty's Government.