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In this article I begin by discussing the persistent problem of relations between educational inequality and the attainment gap in schools. Because benefits accruing from an education are substantial, the 'gap' leads to large disparities in the quality of life many young people can expect to experience in the future. Curriculum knowledge has been a focus for debate in England in relation to educational equality for over 40 years. Given the contestation surrounding views about curriculum knowledge and equality I consider the thinking of two philosophers, Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas, and their work on justice, to trouble the curriculum framework and discourse of knowledge promoted through the policy text of The Importance of Teaching: The Schools White Paper (2010) and later associated policy reforms to the General Certificate of Secondary Education ( GCSE) curriculum in England. The Schools White Paper aims to make the curriculum more challenging to students by introducing tight controls in terms of the assessment framework and curriculum knowledge. I argue that, when considered through Derrida's perspective on language and meaning and Levinas' view on the ethical responsibility for the other, the reforms present obstacles to the search for a just curriculum. I look to the work of Sharon Todd and Paul Standish for a re-imagination of curriculum as or through relations in the light of Derrida's and Levinas' philosophies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family group conferences (FGCs) in child welfare share decision-making with family members by bringing the immediate and wider family together to make a plan to meet a child's needs. This paper reports survey findings on FGC provision in the UK in 2022 and explores whether in England the presence of an FGC service and the rate of FGC provision is associated with the rate of children in care, entering care, in kinship foster care and leaving care. Seventy-nine per cent (n  = 167) of local authorities in the UK provided FGCs to families, and 14 per cent (n  = 29) did not. Services that were more established offered a more diverse range of FGCs. The introduction of FGCs in English local authorities was associated with a higher rate of children in care, but also higher rates of kinship foster care, a key goal of FGCs where it is not possible for children to stay with their parents. Higher rates of FGCs were associated with more children leaving care, possibly due to reunification with birth families. To understand in more detail, the circumstances of children in and leaving care in local authorities with FGCs, individual data linkage studies are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy strategies for managing risk are now well-established in British social policy. These strategies are highly individualized, placing emphasis on the capacity of individuals to mitigate risk in their everyday lives. Further, the paper argues that the dominance of individualized risk governance agendas has serious implications for the design of equality initiatives. Through a case study of sexual and reproductive health policy in England, the paper demonstrates that risk governance has the potential to "shrink" the meaning of equality by institutionalizing a narrow, individualized definition of "equality" in policy, and "bend" equality initiatives to fit a broader neoliberal policy agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessive exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun in summer can cause skin cancer and in Britain there are around 1500 new cases of non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) each year, caused by exposure to solar UV at work. Little is known about the magnitude of UV exposure amongst outdoor construction workers in Britain, although this is one of the main groups at risk. The aim of this paper is to summarise measurements of erythema-weighted UVB radiation amongst construction workers in Scotland and the Southeast of England and interpret the data in terms of the risk of NMSC. The measurements were made as part of an intervention study using short mobile phone text messages to alter worker behaviour to either reduce UV exposure in summer or increase serum vitamin D in winter; the intervention is only briefly reported here. Data were collected from 67 workers from 9 worksites, of whom 41 provided measures of UV exposure for 758 working days. Daily exposure ranged from 0 to 13.47 standard erythema dose (SED), with the mean exposure for outdoor workers being 2.0 SED and the corresponding value for indoor workers being 0.7 SED. These data were obtained from a sensor located on the back of the workers hard hat; others have measured exposure on the wrist or upper arm and these locations probably, on average, have higher levels of UV exposure. It is likely that an outdoor construction worker in Britain could accumulate sufficient solar UV exposure over 30–40 years of work to more than double their risk of NMSC. We argue that employers in Britain should take a more proactive approach to manage sun safety and they should take responsibility for skin health surveillance for their workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a literature review undertaken for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in 2004 (Buchanan et al., 2004) on the impact of government policy in England and Wales for children aged from birth to thirteen at high risk of social exclusion as recorded up until May 2004. It describes the concept of 'social exclusion'; its meaning for children; the aims of government policy; the specific impact of government policy on vulnerable families and children in need (including children needing child protection and all 'looked after' children) as defined by the 1989 Children Act. The paper demonstrates that although progress has been made, there are still major areas of concern. The more discursive parts at the end of the paper reflect the views of the author and later thinking, and were not part of the original submission to the Social Exclusion Unit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the highlights of the international conference on Melodrama hosted by the British Film Institute in London, England from July 6-10, 1992. Discussions covered the history of melodrama, gender issues in the genre, the relationship between critics and readers/consumers and the relationship between theory and practice. Issues that the conference reportedly did not address more forcefully were concerns on the dominance of western legacy on studies of melodrama and how theorists' ideas can be applied.

This article investigates the circulation of news that daily arrived in the ports of late Elizabethan Devon concerning the Spanish fleet. It utilizes the state and Cecil papers, as well as other centrally and locally held manuscript collections, to probe the nature of provincial news networks through the prism of a county-based case study. Previous scholarly research has tended to focus on the single 'hub' of London. However, as this article reveals, there existed much more complex sets of news networks that operated in the first instance at a local level, but which also had connections with the capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores health care in one Lancashire working-class community during the golden age of biomedicine. Both the biomedical and alternative medical services available in the town are examined. The services provided by one community ‘wisewoman’; ranging from the respectable, such as midwifery, to the illegal, including abortion are a key focus. This case study is used as a way to engage with a larger theme in the history of medicine, namely, the tension between orthodox biomedical science and more traditional and alternative approaches to health care. The ways in which during the early twentieth century, traditional healing networks found ways to survive despite the increasing power and reach of biomedicine are demonstrated. This evidence points to the complexity of working-class attitudes to medical authority and practice during the period in question. In Rochdale, the working-class community remained slow to accept the orthodox challenge to traditional beliefs concerning health and healing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Debates surrounding the ostensibly ‘transformative’ potential of personalisation for social work services, and service users, have variously illustrated the risks and opportunities this presents, although the implications for criminal justice social work services have received comparatively limited attention. By extending the concept of ‘service user’ to include not only offenders, but wider stakeholders (victims and communities), this paper considers the practical application of theories of personalisation and co-production by reviewing proposed and extant strategies for maximising stakeholder involvement in criminal justice services. It is argued that, in progressing beyond the more individualistic interpretations of this somewhat controversial reform agenda—in prioritising not only the individual, their rights, strengths and subjective identities, but locating the individual in situ, in the concrete realities and textures of their lives and communities—the strength of the personalisation agenda rests in its potential to develop and strengthen the collective organisation of service users, service providers and communities in a co-productive endeavour. It is argued that both this reading and the principles underpinning it resonate more widely with the empirical and theoretical literature on just and effective penal practices and, in so doing, this paper exposes the complexities that lie behind the apparent simplicity of this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the discussions of ‘magical’ cures found in thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century English pastoral manuals (texts designed to teach the clergy how to preach and hear confessions). It discusses these writers' attitudes to spoken and written charms and non-verbal amulets, and compares them with a selection of charms and amulets found in contemporary medical texts. The paper discusses the reasons why authors of pastoral manuals condemned certain kinds of cure as ‘magical’, and argues that they were more concerned about cures that involved words than about non-verbal amulets. It also argues that a significant number, although not all, of the charms described in thirteenth-century medical texts would have been acceptable to many authors of pastoral manuals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports some of the findings from a study (Farmer et al., 2007), commissioned by an independent foster-care agency (IFA), to examine the support services offered to foster-carers and the young people in their care. In particular, this paper documents the use of a ‘team parenting’ approach within a ‘therapeutic’ fostering environment. Whilst there were some issues regarding the comprehensive assessments and the provision of therapy, foster-carers were positive about the support provided both to themselves and directly to the young people within the team parenting approach. On the other hand, communication and inter-agency working between the IFA and the local authority could be problematic, particularly in relation to funding decisions, which could limit the effectiveness of the team parenting approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents findings from a Department of Health-funded study into the emotional well-being of young people seeking asylum on their own in the UK. It discusses how young people accounted for only partly disclosing information about the circumstances surrounding their quest for asylum and subsequent aspects of their lives since arriving in the UK. Foucault's panoptic mechanism and its focus on the effects of power as dispersed through scrutiny are applied as a theoretical framework to contextualise these experiences. The paper shows that young people's decisions about how much of their current or past lives they share with others are more complex than indicated by earlier research. The paper argues that, for many young people, the predominant impetus for selective disclosure was a desire to retain a degree of agency as they navigated their way through immigration, asylum, social care, health and education systems and simultaneously sought to establish themselves in the social world. These findings have implications for how social care (and other) professionals engage and work with young people seeking asylum alone. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Following the Second World War there was an upsurge in interest in what was seen as a fast-disappearing traditional way of life, especially that of the countryside where rapid mechanization was bringing about sweeping changes. Two different organizations simultaneously responded to this in the same way – to found museums in which collections of objects from that disappearing world could be preserved and conserved. The Royal Anthropological Institute proposed setting up a Museum of English Life and Traditions, whereas the University of Reading decided on a Museum of English Rural Life. In this paper the events and personalities involved in these two schemes are described, and how and why the RAI's project failed while Reading's became a success is examined. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The social work degree has now been introduced in England and it is timely to reflect on and evaluate key changes made by many universities in this process. This paper reflects on the beginning of such an evaluation, presenting a case study of assessment changes made in relation to communication skills teaching in a post-1992 university. This will act as a vehicle to explore some of the inherent complexities involved. Assessment methods implemented on social work courses should be scrutinized in relation to their validity, reliability and feasibility. Drawing upon multi-professional literature, one such process of scrutiny is described, with the intention of contributing to current debates regarding communication skills within the wider arena of developing social work education. The case study presented outlines how one social work programme changed its method of assessing communication skills for social work students. It explores the processes involved in moving from an essay assignment to the use of video interviews, supplemented by a written reflective self-evaluation undertaken in relation to the interview process. The views of students are outlined via their responses to a questionnaire and the paper highlights key themes identified by a student focus group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the rich possibilities for social history opened up by the cultural turn. Focusing on the interplay of myth, memory, and place, it begins with the Kymin, a hillside site outside the Welsh border town of Monmouth. In about 1800 this site was carefully remodelled to invest it with a series of meanings—urban/rural, enlightened/romantic, Welsh/English/British—through which those who visited it were able to explore and express their ambivalent identities. The eighteenth-century spa of Bath was also "symbolic territory," and in one of its iconic structures, the Circus, myth, memory, and place combined to allow the elite to examine similar issues of identity to those at the Kymin. Central to the mythical element in both sites was the notion of the hero. It was an idea that was to resurface on a grand scale in late Victorian and Edwardian Bath, as the city's historic fabric was reconfigured as a "mausoleum" to Britain's Georgian imperial heroes. The paper concludes by arguing that the identities examined in the paper were closely tied to ones of social class, and that the way forward for social history is a fusion of the cultural and the structural that emphasizes the interaction between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the highlights of an international conference on British cinema that was held at the University of East Anglia from July 10 to 12, 1998. Speakers during the conference discussed the incompatibility between the terms "British" and "cinema." Fifty-eight papers were presented as well as a video presentation by professor Charles Barr that was recorded in New Zealand. Among the films screened were "I Know Where I'm Going" and "Hindle Wakes," by Maurice Elvey. Keynote addresses were delivered by Marcia Landy and Pierre Sorlin.

In 2014, research was undertaken to examine social workers' confidence, understanding and awareness of child sexual abuse (CSA) as it was suggested that a decline in numbers of reported incidents might be due to a decline in levels of understanding and awareness. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty-five first-line, middle and senior managers and two chairs of local safeguarding boards across six local authorities in England. Focus groups were conducted with fifty-four social workers. Key themes revealed a complex array of issues, ranging from the diverse forms of CSA and exploitation that social workers are required to address, the variable support and training available, and the inter-disciplinary nature of much of the work. Although social workers undertake this important work with a strong sense of commitment and concern for children, they face a number of challenges. Paradoxically, whilst their work on these cases is the source of intense scrutiny, the training, support and supervision, and role clarity required to undertake this work well are often overlooked. The aim of this paper is to discuss the research findings and to identify implications for social work practice, training, multi-agency work and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the rising use of commercial medical assistance in early modern England. We measure individual consumption of medical and nursing services using a new dataset of debts at death between ca. 1670 and ca. 1790. Levels of consumption of medical services were high and stable in London from the 1680s. However, we find rapid growth in the provinces, in both the likelihood of using medical assistance and the sums spent on it. The structure of medical services also shifted, with an increase in "general practice," particularly by apothecaries. The expansion in medical services diffused from London and was motivated by changing preferences, not wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background There is an urgent need to address high levels of work-related violence (WRV) in Britain to improve the workplace experience of both employers and employees. Aims This study specifically explores prevalence rates of work-related violence assaults (WRVAs) for staff at high risk that have supervisor responsibilities and work full-time. Methods Five years of data were used for analysis from the Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW). Data were filtered for victims of crime from a working population in Britain. Results Forty-four per cent of respondents who are supervisors and have full-time jobs report that they had been victims of WRVAs. This figure is higher than other previous studies of WRV. Conclusions The current study provides further alternative evidence to support high prevalence rates of WRV by selecting for analysis specific work characteristics data that are strongly associated with WRV (supervisor responsibilities and full-time work). It is therefore recommended that future work explores different means of intervention for organizations to implement within the workplace to reduce WRV and protect workers from harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses English Reverend Richard Clarke (1723-1802), notable for his preaching in South Carolina in the 1750s. It is largely based upon information taken from the court records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, England regarding a probate case for the estate of haberdasher Kezia Sindram, the aunt of Clarke's fourth wife Sarah Lee, with additional information found in "The Papers of Henry Laurens," by British merchant and South Carolina politician Laurens. It discusses Clarke's career as an educator, writer, and minister; his family and relatives; and his associates.

Background People living with chronic kidney disease (CKD) need to be able to live well with their condition. The provision of psychosocial interventions (psychological, psychiatric and social care) and physical rehabilitation management is variable across England, as well as the rest of the UK. There is a need for clear recommendations for standards of psychosocial and physical rehabilitation care for people living with CKD, and guidance for the commissioning and measurement of these services. The National Health Service (NHS) England Renal Services Transformation Programme (RSTP) supported a programme of work and modified Delphi process to address the management of psychosocial and physical rehabilitation care as part of a larger body of work to formulate a comprehensive commissioning toolkit for renal care services across England. We sought to achieve expert consensus regarding the psychosocial and physical rehabilitation management of people living with CKD in England and the rest of the UK. Methods A Delphi consensus method was used to gather and refine expert opinions of senior members of the kidney multi-disciplinary team (MDT) and other key stakeholders in the UK. An agreement was sought on 16 statements reflecting aspects of psychosocial and physical rehabilitation management for people living with CKD. Results Twenty-six expert practitioners and other key stakeholders, including lived experience representatives, participated in the process. The consensus (>80% affirmative votes) amongst the respondents for all 16 statements was high. Nine recommendation statements were discussed and refined further to be included in the final iteration of the 'Systems' section of the NHS England RSTP commissioning toolkit. These priority recommendations reflect pragmatic solutions that can be implemented in renal care and include recommendations for a holistic wellbeing assessment for all people living with CKD who are approaching dialysis, or who are at listing for kidney transplantation, which includes the use of validated measurement tools to assess the need for further intervention in psychosocial and physical rehabilitation management. It is recommended that the scores from these measurement tools be included in the NHS England Renal Data Dashboard. There was also a recommendation for referral as appropriate to NHS Talking Therapies, psychology, counselling or psychotherapy, social work or liaison psychiatry for those with identified psychosocial needs. The use of digital resources was recommended to be used in addition to face-to-face care to provide physical rehabilitation, and all healthcare professionals should be educated to recognize psychosocial and physical rehabilitation needs and refer/sign-post people with CKD to appropriate services. Conclusion There was high consensus amongst senior members of the kidney MDT and other key stakeholders, including those with lived experience, in the UK on all aspects of the psychosocial and physical rehabilitation management of people living with CKD. The results of this process will be used by NHS England to inform the 'Systems' section of the commissioning toolkit and data dashboard and to inform the National Standards of Care for people living with CKD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most historiographic attention about the quality of London's drinking water has been directed towards the nineteenth century, it was an important subject in the eighteenth century as well. This paper focuses particularly on the New River supply to the city and shows that different groups approached the subject in various ways. The New River Company was constantly concerned about quality in regard to matter that affected the water's taste, appearance and smell, meaning mostly weeds, leaves and mud. Popular opinion, however, fixated on one subject above all others: that of people bathing in the New River. This source of contamination created such ire because the practice of bathing was becoming increasingly popular for its health effects; those objecting mingled moral and spiritual impurity with the contamination of the water; and finally, there was a strong class element to the dispute, with the bathers being from the lower classes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Times was a mid-nineteenth-century newspaper phenomenon, defeating rival London newspapers through its skilful management, advanced technology, greater editorial resources and access to powerful politicians. Its authority enabled it to make and break governments. However, the uniqueness of The Times limits its usefulness as a historical source. This article begins with a brief history of The Times, before analysing how the newspaper remains centre stage in the historiography of journalism and of nineteenth-century culture more broadly, despite the digitization of provincial and other London papers. Over-dependence on The Times, it argues, has exaggerated the significance of London daily newspapers and underplayed the importance of weekly papers, particularly those published outside London. The Times was unusual because it was a metropolitan rather than provincial paper, with a focus on political news and a dearth of lighter, broader content, or news of events around the UK. Using quantitative analysis of recent scholarship, the article demonstrates that unwarranted conclusions are still drawn from over-use of this source and from a wider view that it was representative of nineteenth-century newspapers in general. The conclusion urges a more geographically and culturally nuanced approach to Victorian newspapers, beyond a metropolitan-focused political and cultural history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1930s, Labour-dominated boroughs in central London embarked on an experiment in health and social transformation, at the centre of which was the construction of new health centres. The ‘all-in’ state-run health centres in Bermondsey, Finsbury, Southwark and Woolwich attempted to provide a comprehensive array of primary and preventive health services to working people and families, close to home or work. The centres shared a model of health with several principles in common: a notion of health improvement as linked to broader social transformation through the enhancement of urban space; a seamless integration of preventive and curative health services; care delivered by multidisciplinary teams; accessibility (spatially and economically); didactic education in self-care; and democratic local governance. This paper argues that these Labour borough councils, with the support of the London County Council after 1934, played a key role in ‘making real’ what had been an amorphous health centre ideal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses and presents a reprint of the document "Notes From Discourses Touching Religion," by Samuel Pepys, a client of England's King James II and president of the Royal Society. It examines Pepys' religious views, commenting on his religious allegiance, biblical criticism, and church history. The author considers the patron-client relationship between James II and Pepys and reflects on James II's efforts to promote Catholicism. Pepys' views on the Church of England are also addressed.

Summary. In many countries, a key component of measuring census coverage is a post-enumeration survey. In the 2001 censuses of the UK this was called the Census Coverage Survey. The paper reviews the design of the 2001 Census Coverage Survey and develops the design for the survey in 2011, taking advantage of the experience of 2001 and the data that were generated by the 2001 process. This leads to a proposed design that is less clustered than in 2001 and has an allocation that is more skewed towards areas where coverage in the 2011 census is expected to be lowest. The updated design balances optimal allocation against maintaining a sufficient sample across all areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary welfare is closely linked to policies designed to foster individual responsibility and self-development. This agenda, however, encounters problems when adults lack the capacity to make decisions about their lives, and/or are unable to protect themselves from the malign actions of their fellow citizens. These problems are addressed by the 2005 Mental Capacity Act (England and Wales) and adult safeguarding procedures. Specifically, the 2005 Mental Capacity Act (England and Wales) (MCA) introduced a statutory advocacy service, which empowers local authorities to appoint an Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA) to represent the interests of adult lacking capacity to make decisions about adult safeguarding procedures. This paper presents (i) a general overview of the development of adult safeguarding and the introduction of the MCA's IMCA service into these procedures; (ii) findings from a research project investigating the integration of IMCAs into these procedures; and (iii) a discussion of the challenges facing IMCAs involved in adult safeguarding procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses printed catalogues produced by the Oxford University Press between 1677 and 1720 when the publisher was located at the Sheldonian Theater in Oxford, England. Historical sources for some of the catalogues, first printed as broadsides, were created by scholars including Anthony Wood, John Bagford, and Arthur Charlett, Master of University College. Booksellers located in Oxford during the period discussed include Moses Pitt, Peter Parker, and Thomas Guy. A compiled list of publications printed by the Oxford University Press during the period is presented.

The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is an electronic system for assessing children and sharing information between child welfare professionals, which is at various stages of pilot and implementation in England and Wales. Research by the authors in England (Peckover et al., 2008a, 2008b; White et al., 2008) and in Wales (Pithouse et al., 2004; Pithouse, 2006) informs this paper in order to compare CAF as implicating a number of policy 'goods', with CAF as a set of worker and organizational accomplishments. Our interest here is that in the course of implementation, policy aims have become submerged in day-to-day practice and that, analytically, there are differences between the 'CAF of policy' and the 'CAF of practice'; in brief, there are, conceptually, two CAFs, the formal construct of policy and the applied CAF as constructed by multiple organizations across Wales and England, wherein there is no singular model. Indeed, we demonstrate that there are all manner of common assessment designs operating in the world of practice. Rather than rehearsing our research findings (the above sources offer an abundance), we use this opportunity to develop and synthesize our arguments about key assumptions and conceptual properties that underpin the CAF of policy and practice and which may have wider provenance in respect of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in child welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the development of inter-agency partnerships between the probation service and voluntary sector organizations in the early 1990s in England and Wales and reports the results of research by the author and their implications for youth justice arrangements outlined in the recent 1998 Crime and Disorder Act. The article outlines the development of probation partnerships and the impact of changes to probation services, voluntary organizations and service users which include: a shift towards purchaser-provider and contract-based arrangements; voluntary organizations taking on a role to work with involuntary clients; and the introduction of a discourse on partnerships which marginalizes small, informal voluntary groups. These findings are then considered in relation to the Crime and Disorder Partnerships for crime prevention which form a crucial part of the 1998 Criminal Justice Act. The Crime and Disorder Partnerships have less emphasis on a managerialist agenda but offer no extra resources and this article suggests that they may therefore not result in significant benefits for agencies working with young offenders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction The adult social care outcomes toolkit (ASCOT) measures social care-related quality of life (SCRQoL) using self-completion questionnaires and interviews. Many care home residents find such methods inaccessible, leading to a reliance on proxy-reporting. This study aimed to establish the psychometric properties of the mixed-methods toolkit [ASCOT-Care Homes, 4 outcome (CH4)] for measuring SCRQoL when residents cannot self-report. Methods Two cross-sectional, mixed-methods studies were undertaken in care homes for older people in England between 2015 and 2020. We used the ASCOT-CH4 (observation, and interviews with residents and proxies) to collect information about SCRQoL and collected additional data on residents' needs and characteristics, and variables hypothesised to be related to SCRQoL. Hypothesis testing was applied to establish construct validity, Cronbach's alpha for internal consistency and exploratory factor analysis for structural validity. Results The combined dataset included 475 residents from 54 care homes (34 nursing, 20 residential). Half had a diagnosis of dementia. Less than a third of residents were able to complete an ASCOT interview. Observations and proxy interviews informed researcher ratings, meaning there were no missing ASCOT-CH4 scores. ASCOT-CH4 was found to be a weak unidimensional scale, consistent with other ASCOT measures, with acceptable internal consistency (α  = 0.77, 8 items). Construct validity was supported by the findings. Conclusions The ASCOT-CH4 is an alternative to conventional proxy-questionnaires for measuring the SCRQoL of care home residents, with good psychometric properties. A limitation is that users need a range of data collection skills. Future research should explore whether findings are replicable when data are collected by other researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Concerns have been raised that angiotensin-converting enzyme-inhibitors (ACE-I) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) might facilitate transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 leading to more severe coronavirus disease (COVID-19) disease and an increased risk of mortality. We aimed to investigate the association between ACE-I/ARB treatment and risk of death amongst people with COVID-19 in the first 6 months of the pandemic. Methods We identified a cohort of adults diagnosed with either confirmed or probable COVID-19 (from 1 January to 21 June 2020) using computerized medical records from the Oxford-Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Research and Surveillance Centre (RSC) primary care database. This comprised 465 general practices in England, United Kingdom with a nationally representative population of 3.7 million people. We constructed mixed-effects logistic regression models to quantify the association between ACE-I/ARBs and all-cause mortality among people with COVID-19, adjusted for sociodemographic factors, comorbidities, concurrent medication, smoking status, practice clustering, and household number. Results There were 9,586 COVID-19 cases in the sample and 1,463 (15.3%) died during the study period between 1 January 2020 and 21 June 2020. In adjusted analysis ACE-I and ARBs were not associated with all-cause mortality (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1.02, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.85–1.21 and OR 0.84, 95% CI 0.67–1.07, respectively). Conclusion Use of ACE-I/ARB, which are commonly used drugs, did not alter the odds of all-cause mortality amongst people diagnosed with COVID-19. Our findings should inform patient and prescriber decisions concerning continued use of these medications during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will examine how the physical reality behind Tallis’s illustrations can be illuminated to explore the commercial, domestic and social dimensions of Tallis’s London. It will explore the range of material culture available, and how this can be used to analyse interior space, in particular through English Heritage’s Architectural Study Collection. Two preliminary case studies will investigate the future potential for looking behind the façades of early Victorian London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical knowledge and experience, and demographic changes, indicated the need to ensure provision of adequate ‘psychogeriatric’ services to provide treatment for mentally ill older people (generally over 65 years). Various factors influenced the provision of these services, including politics, economics and stereotypical negative attitudes towards older people. Clinicians successfully led service developments, often unsupported by central government and local health authorities, despite benefits being noted in the localities where services were established. In 1989, services were available to most of the population of England and the Department of Health officially recognised psychogeriatrics as a medical specialty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses attitudes and public opinions regarding crime and criminals in London, England between 1660 and 1800. It considers moral panics arising from situations including the demobilization of troops and sailors after periods of war and the perceived threat by unemployed military forces, organized criminal gangs such as the Black Boy Alley gang, crime following the Gordon riots, as well as rises in crime from political instability. Other topics include crime in the press, the influence of broadsheets and pamphlets on public opinion, and the creation of the police.

The article reports on a historical source found in the archives of the Cecil Papers at Hatfield House in Herfordshire, England related to the February 8, 1601 uprising in London, England led by Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex, against the monarchy of British Queen Elizabeth I. The document details a conspiracy by supporters of the Earl of Essex to free the Earl from his imprisonment for treason in the Tower of London planned for February 15, 1601. It reports that the plan was reconsidered and abandoned, but not before crown authorities heard of it and arrested three leaders of the conspiracy.

The article discusses the meetings of Dermatology related associations in Great Britain. One of them includes the third meeting of Great Britain Psychodermatology Special Interest Group which took place at the Medical Society of London on January 27, 2005. Many dermatologists, psychiatrists and psychologists attended it. Professor Christopher Griffiths from The Hope Hospital, Manchester, England, opened with a talk on 'The Brain-Skin Axis in Psoriasis'. Richard Staughton, a Dermatologist introduced the topic, 'The Psychodermatology of Hair.' Other meeting focuses on the 1st Congress of the International Dermoscopy Society Naples, Italy, which organizes a meeting on April 6, 2006 designed for all colleagues interested in the diagnosis and management of pigmented skin lesions.

Shift work causes disruption to circadian physiological processes in the human body, and desynchronization from the natural day-and-night rhythm. Circadian disruption is thought to explain the associations between shift work and various long-term diseases; light is an unrivalled synchronizer (or Zeitgeber) of circadian processes and inappropriate light exposure plausibly plays a critical role in the development of health impairments. As published measurement data on the actual light environments encountered by shift workers are sparse, nurses working in two hospitals in London (UK) and Dortmund (Germany) wore light-logging dosimetry devices to measure personal light exposures continuously over a week in three different seasons. The study identifies and quantifies several of the characteristics of light exposure related to different working patterns in winter, spring, and summer, and quantifies interindividual variations. These data enable informed design of light exposure interventions or changes to shifts to reduce unwanted effects of disruptive light exposure profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative lawyers and economists have often assumed that traditional Chinese laws and customs reinforced the economic and political dominance of elites and, therefore, were unusually "despotic" towards the poor. Such assumptions are highly questionable: one of the most striking characteristics of Qing and Republican property institutions is, in fact, that they often gave significantly greater economic protection to the poorer segments of society than comparable institutions in early modern England. In particular, Chinese property customs afforded much stronger powers of redemption to landowners who had pawned their land. In both societies, land-pawning occurred far more frequently among poorer households than richer ones, but Chinese customary law allowed debtors to indefinitely retain redemption rights over collateralized property, whereas English debtors would generally lose the property permanently if they failed to redeem it within one year. This article argues that the comparatively "egalitarian" tendencies of Qing and Republican property institutions stemmed from the different ways Chinese and English rural communities allocated social status and rank. Hierarchical "Confucian" kinship networks dominated social and economic life in most Chinese villages. Within these networks, an individual's status and rank depended, in large part, on his age and generational seniority, rather than personal wealth. This allowed many low-income households to enjoy status and rank highly disproportionate to their wealth. In comparison, substantial landed wealth was generally a prerequisite for high status in early modern England, effectively excluding lower-income households from positions of sociopolitical authority. Chinese smallholders possessed, therefore, significantly more social bargaining power, and were able to negotiate more desirable property institutions. Paradoxically, the predominance of kinship hierarchies actually enhanced macro-level political and economic equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the sixteen-eighties over one million packs of playing cards were being produced every year. This article examines the huge growth of the playing card trade during the seventeenth century and the process by which cards came to occupy a significant place in the history of English central government revenue generation. Particular attention is paid to the imposition of stamp duty on cards from 1711 and resulting cases of fraud; consideration is also given to the place of playing cards in wider histories of consumption. The article concludes with a discussion about the relationship between gaming and the playing card trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses moral and sexual changes in Great Britain in the post-World War II era, examining the notion of a permissive society. It explores the influence of the state and the press and comments on the role of London, England in these transformations. The author also reflects on sexual scandals, particularly noting an affair between British war minister John Profumo and Christine Keeler, the supposed mistress of a Russian spy. An inquiry into sexual reform led by John Frederick Wolfenden, Baron Wolfenden, also known as Lord Wolfenden, is also considered.

Surveying the changing image of the police detective from the inception of detective departments in the new police in the mid Victorian era through to its formative period in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is vital to our understanding of how the system of crime control was perceived at the time. Initially, the notion of undercover policing was widely rejected. By the eve of the First World War, however, police detectives, especially at Scotland Yard, enjoyed an almost heroic reputation. In the belief that the press was the most significant factor in shaping the dominant view on police detectives during this crucial period, this article examines their changing image as reflected in newspapers and periodicals, and the role played by the press in this metamorphosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Leverhulme-funded editing of William Godwin's diary aims to 'to construct a picture of London's literary and extra-parliamentary political life', following the diary's 'remarkably detailed map of radical intellectual and political life in the turbulent period of the 1790s' . However, this map also extends far beyond the 1790s, with the diary's total span reaching from 1788 until Godwin's death in 1836. Critics and biographers have long assumed that Godwin's radical phase was over by 1800, and London to him was only ever a meeting point for free-floating, alienated intellectuals. By contrast, this paper presents new evidence showing his immersion in the material conditions and popular politics of nineteenth-century London. Following Godwin's movements in 1810 from his home and shop in Skinner Street, his perambulations around the city, and visits to dine with fellow radicals and publishers the article examines his immersion in the material conditions and popular politics of nineteenth-century London. It sees him campaigning against the abominable conditions in nearby Smithfield market; joining street protests to demand the release of Burdett from the Tower; and meeting Cobbett in Newgate. Godwin's circulations, recorded in his diary, bring to our attention the cross-fertilization between philosophic and popular radicalism and compel us to re-think the relationship between the conversations at private dinners and the protests in the streets in order to locate and better understand the nineteenth-century metropolitan critical public sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conducting an exit poll to forecast the outcome of a national election in terms of both votes and seats is particularly difficult in Britain. No official information is available on how individual polling stations voted in the past, use of single-member plurality means that there is no consistent relationship between votes and seats, electors can choose to vote by post and most of those who vote in person do so late in the day. In addition, around one in every six intended exit poll respondents refuses to participate. Methods that were developed to overcome these problems, and their use in the successful 2005 British Broadcasting Corporation–Independent Television exit poll, are described and evaluated. The methodology included a panel design to allow the estimation of electoral change at local level, coherent multiple-regression modelling of multiparty electoral change to capture systematic patterns of variation, probabilistic prediction of constituency winners to account for uncertainty in projected constituency level shares, collection of information about the voting intentions of postal voters before polling day and access to interviewer guesses on the voting behaviour of refusals. The coverage and accuracy of the exit poll data are critically examined, the effect of key aspects of the statistical modelling of the data is assessed and some general lessons are drawn for the design and analysis of electoral exit polls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tensions between imperatives for sharing of information about clients, patients, and offenders and those for confidentiality and privacy have become a prominent but unresolved issue in British public policy in the context of greater pressures toward interagency collaboration. This article analyses empirical data from a major Economic and Social Research Council-funded research project designed to provide the first systematic evidence about the ways in which local partnerships working in sensitive policy fields in England and Scotland attempt to strike settlements between sharing and confidentiality and discusses the impact of national government's attempts to increase formal regulation of their information-sharing practices. To do this, the project has developed a methodology to operationalize neo-Durkheimian institutional theory and demonstrates that theory in this tradition has the power to identify and explain patterns of information-sharing styles adopted in local collaborative working. The overall conclusion is that the stronger assertion of formal regulation by national government may well be leading to the greater prominence of hierarchical institutional forms but it may also be associated with the counterassertion of other institutional forms, too, and in ways that may reinforce problems that greater regulation is intended to address. In particular, we show that neither does increased formal regulation always lead frontline staff to be more confident about local information-sharing practices nor should it lead observers to be more confident that data-sharing practices will be more transparent or consistent from locality to locality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The constituency work of British Members of Parliament (MPs) has long been referred to in political circles as a form of social work. This article reports on a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with thirteen MPs. The aim of the research was to find out what characterises their constituency work to understand why it apparently bears comparison with social work. The article draws on the concepts of proximity and place from the mobilities paradigm to articulate the idea of 'politics as social work'. MPs in the study engaged in face-to-face emotional labour in which they formed and sustained empathic relationships with people and places to represent them. They practised judgement under uncertainty and risk work, and they were embedded in local organisational networks of risk and trust with local authorities and other agencies. The article argues that this analysis of politics as social work provides a deeper understanding of the politics of social work. In the era of the COVID-19 pandemic and its severe socio-economic impact, the importance for social work of the concept of emplaced empathy and the need for our reorientation to place is thrown into particularly sharp focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Seroprevalence studies are essential to understand the epidemiology of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Various technologies, including laboratory assays and point-of-care self-tests, are available for antibody testing. The interpretation of seroprevalence studies requires comparative data on the performance of antibody tests. Methods In June 2020, current and former members of the United Kingdom police forces and fire service performed a self-test lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA), had a nurse-performed LFIA, and provided a venous blood sample for enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). We present the prevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 and the acceptability and usability of self-test LFIAs, and we determine the sensitivity and specificity of LFIAs compared with laboratory ELISA. Results In this cohort of 5189 current and former members of the police service and 263 members of the fire service, 7.4% (396 of 5348; 95% confidence interval [CI], 6.7–8.1) were antibody positive. Seroprevalence was 8.9% (95% CI, 6.9–11.4) in those under 40 years, 11.5% (95% CI, 8.8–15.0) in those of nonwhite ethnicity, and 7.8% (95% CI, 7.1–8.7) in those currently working. Self-test LFIA had an acceptability of 97.7% and a usability of 90.0%. There was substantial agreement between within-participant LFIA results (kappa 0.80; 95% CI, 0.77–0.83). The LFIAs had a similar performance: compared with ELISA, sensitivity was 82.1% (95% CI, 77.7–86.0) self-test and 76.4% (95% CI, 71.9–80.5) nurse-performed with specificity of 97.8% (95% CI, 97.3–98.2) and 98.5% (95% CI, 98.1–98.8), respectively. Conclusions A greater proportion of this nonhealthcare key worker cohort showed evidence of previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 than the general population at 6.0% (95% CI, 5.8–6.1) after the first wave in England. The high acceptability and usability reported by participants and similar performance of self-test and nurse-performed LFIAs indicate that the self-test LFIA is fit for purpose for home testing in occupational and community prevalence studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Due to the uncertain disease trajectory and variable rate of progression in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), health care professionals (HCPs) are challenged in explaining what the future may hold for patients compared to those with lung cancer (LC). Support and communication of timely information can significantly improve health outcomes.Objective: This study sought to identify factors that impact communication and support and recommend ways to improve patients' understanding of living with life-threatening illness.Methods: Semi-structured interviews with patients with LC (n = 22) and advanced COPD (n = 18), their informal carers (21 LC and 18 COPD) and HCPs (n = 51). Patients were recruited from primary and secondary care in the East of England, UK, during 2010-12.Results: Directness and clarity characterized communication in LC, whereas uncertainty and limited explanations predominated in COPD. Discussions on how the disease might impact on decisions and preferences to be made in the future were less common in COPD. Information for LC patients was mainly from hospital clinicians and any information for COPD patients mainly from primary care clinicians.Conclusions: The experience of COPD patients could be improved by professionals soon after diagnosis explaining to them the typical pattern of decline in COPD, highlighting the inherent uncertainties about when exacerbations and death may occur. This conversation should lead to planning for the different challenges that the patient and informal carer recognize as most important to them. This contrasts with the 'breaking bad news' conversation that oncologists are highly trained to deliver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses a conference held in London, England to observe the centenary of the death of England's Queen Victoria and the 150th anniversary of the Great Exhibition. Conference's engagement of the discipline of the history of science to a greater degree than other Victorian studies conferences; Papers that illustrated the contested range of meanings given to the term 'Victorian.'

Background. Recent UK government documents have stated that, within the National Health Service, consumers should be more involved in decision-making. This study considered the technique of discrete choice conjoint analysis (DCCA) for eliciting community views regarding the importance of reducing waiting times. More specifically, the study aimed to establish whether residents living on the Isle of Wight are prepared to travel to the mainland for elective surgery where waiting times are shorter but travel costs may be greater, and, further, if residents are willing to travel, what reduction in waiting time and increase in travel costs would be acceptable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]