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ObjectiveHealth-related research in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has grown over the years. However, concerns have been raised about the state of research ethics committees (RECs). This scoping review examines the literature on RECs for health-related research in SSA and identifies strategies that have been applied to strengthen the RECs. It focuses on three aspects of RECs: regulatory governance and leadership, administrative and financial capacity and technical capacity of members.DesignA scoping review of published literature, including grey literature, was conducted using the Joanna Briggs Institute approach.Data sourcesBioOne, CINAHL, Embase (via Ovid), Education Abstracts, Global Health, Google Scholar, Jstor, OpenEdition (French), Philosopher’s Index, PsycINFO, PubMed, Science Citation and Expanded Index (Web of Science), reference lists of included studies and specific grey literature sources.Eligibility criteriaWe included empirical studies on RECs for health-related research in SSA, covering topics on REC leadership and governance, administrative and financial capacity and the technical capacity of REC members. We included studies published between 01 January 2000 and 18 February 2022 and written in English, French, Portuguese or Swahili.Data extraction and synthesisTwo independent reviewers screened the records. Data were extracted by one reviewer and cross-checked by another. Owing to the heterogeneity of included studies, thematic analysis was used.ResultsWe included 54 studies. The findings show that most RECs in SSA work under significant administrative and financial constraints, with few opportunities for capacity building for committee members. This has an impact on the quality of reviews and the overall performance of RECs. Although most countries have national governance systems for RECs, they lack regulations on accountability, transparency and monitoring of RECs.ConclusionsThis review provides a comprehensive overview of the literature on RECs for health-related research in SSA and contributes to our understanding of how RECs can be strengthened.

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

The UK Standing Conference on Specialist Community Public Health Nurse Education represents the interests of those most intimately involved with specialist community public health nurse (health visitor) (SCPHN (HV)) education in higher education institutions across the UK. This paper summarizes issues currently affecting the education of SCPHN (HV)s and the delivery of health visiting and public health nursing services across the UK. Difficulties in recruitment, numbers of practice teachers and tensions created by the gap between expected and actual practice roles for health visitors are discussed. This discussion takes place in the context of the Programme of Action on Health Visiting, which was launched in 2009 by the Department of Health in England. Recommendations for action by HEIs are made in response to the difficulties identified in particular. Although this paper applies to all the UK SCPHN education programmes the majority of these are in England, which has resulted in a focus being placed on challenges in England.

In this section, a range of brief synopses of recently published articles that may be of interest to health visitors is presented. The aim of this roundup is to provide an overview, rather than a detailed summary, of the research papers selected. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided.

Multisensor y environments are well established and increasing in number. They are used with a variety of client groups and nurses working in community settings will encounter clients who use them. There have been attempts to research the benefits of multisensory environments but ethical and methodological difficulties exist. The current state of the evidence indicates that multisensor y environments are useful but the evidence remains inconclusive. Practitioners working with such environments need clear standards and guidelines but these are dependent on a strong evidence base that does not currently exist. It is important that nurses, carers, and therapists contribute to the generation of research-based evidence and the development of guidelines.

This study surveyed the initial post-course destinations, the retrospective perceptions on the validity of their degree course and the future career intentions of the Early Childhood Studies students who graduated from University College Suffolk in 1996. Data collection was via postal questionnaires. The majority of graduates had found employment or been accepted onto post-graduate courses allied to their Early Childhood Studies Degree. They appeared to he satisfied with the relevance of the programme of study to their initial post-course destinations. The course team, however, identified three issues for consideration when the curriculum and student experience are reviewed.

Val Thurtle and Jane Horsfall discuss the benefits the lecturer–practitioner can bring to the public health team as a bridge between theory and practice.

Student health visitors led a Mini-MEND project for families with young children as part of their public health nursing course. The project gave a framework for the students and staff members from the children's centre to stimulate an awareness of health needs and facilitate health enhancing activities in terms of healthy eating and parenting. Reflection on the initiative identified application of the principles of health visiting and the domains of specialist community public health nursing, yet the pressures of current health visiting workloads mean that having developed public health skills to use with groups and communities, they may not be used by newly-qualified health visitors.

In this primary care trust there was limited health visitor prescribing. A case study approach sought to identify reasons for this, to lead to recommendations and changes to develop health visitor prescribing. The situation was examined using qualitative methods to consider the opportunities and challenges in health visitor prescribing. Semi-structured interviews with eighteen health visitors and managers explored their views of health visitor prescribing and its position within the PCT. The findings demonstrated only three health visitors prescribed; yet the majority were positive about prescribing, both for clients and health visitor development. Practitioners recognised their difficult working context and felt that organisational systems were not supportive of prescribing. A culture of prescribing was not felt to be in evidence, but was seen as a realistic possibility. Recommendations for change focused on the organisation and practitioners, with improved communication and structures supportive of prescribing. There was a need for practitioners to be active in learning so that they could share knowledge, experience and commitment to prescribing in locally based groups.

The discussion of advanced practice in nursing is ongoing, yet the need for practice to advance and develop across the health economy is called for in much of the current literature and government policy. This article considers an educational intervention that set out to advance primary care nursing. The programme aimed to facilitated nurses to understand clients, families and carers in the community setting, to offer a high standard of care, to support specialist practitioner team leaders to work across community nursing disciplines and to make their own career development choices. Advancing practice in this novel primary care nursing programme required change management, collaboration, partnership, leadership and involvement of the staff nurses themselves.

Current policy places much emphasis on public health and care outside hospital. To provide this requires a qualified work force but a large number of community nurses are approaching retirement. While there is a commitment to recruit and retain such nurses, there is little information available on community nurses' career trajectories, or on why staff choose to work in the community and why they undertake community specialist practice (CSP) programmes. This paper reports the findings of a survey of community specialist practice students--community children's nurses (CCNs), community mental health nurses (CMHNs) district nurses (DNs), health visitors (HVs), practice nurses (PNs), school nurses (SNs)--in a large London based programme. They were asked why they had entered community practice and why they had undertaken a community specialist practice programme. Findings were not categorical; the reasons for entering community work included increased initiative, more autonomy and preferred hours. Scope for initiative, autonomy and increased independence were reasons for undertaking the CSP programme, as well as better promotion prospects. Differences were evident in response by age of respondent and by whether they had dependent children. All types of respondents saw themselves as public health practitioners. Practice nurses stood out as different from the others, seeing hours as significant, but not promotion prospects despite expecting higher grades on completion of the programme. The study raises various questions, which could be explored after refinement of the study tool and using students in different locations throughout the country.

In this article we discuss the setting up of a child development centre for children with a developmental delay in a rural market town away from a tertiary centre. The process was evaluated by a variety of methods including analysis of centre activity, preliminary questionnaires to parents at the end of their child’s assessment, reflections by the centre team and in the final year of the project, a survey of all parents who had used the service, professionals who worked in it and other agencies in the centre town and a comparison town. Parents and staff reported high levels of satisfaction in relation to multidisciplinary working, venue, communication, and a child/family friendly approach. Further work is needed in developing links with social services and the voluntary sector.

The implementation of clinical governance (Department of Health, 1997) requires the review of practice by consideration of complaints and clinical incidents. A systematic review of the clinical incident forms in group homes for those with learning disabilities, within an NHS community trust, highlighted issues for concern. This led to an audit being conducted of drug administration procedures involving examination of records and observation of practice. It demonstrated that there was general adherence to the trust’s policies. The audit stimulated debate, and a number of potential areas for action were identified. The review of drug administration with clients who have learning disabilities raised wider questions about the scarcity of evidence in this area to support practice, the culture of client-centred homes and whether monitoring systems are sufficiently robust.

A recent event held by the United Kingdom Standing Conference on Specialist Community Public Health Nurse Education focused on building resilience, not only in the community but among practitioners themselves.

Post-natal depression is much discussed yet definitions and approaches are not homogenous, neither in terms of the cause of post-partum mental ill health, its treatment or how further research in the area should proceed. This paper seeks to examine post-natal 'upsets' and to consider the different explanations that have been and could be made of post-partum mental ill health. The paper reviews the dominant biomedical and psychological approaches, evaluating their ability to explain post-natal mental illness. The writer believes biological and psychological approaches are in the ascendance but seeks to demonstrate that they do not present a full picture. Sociological approaches drawing upon stress, labelling and feminist models are examined, exploring new ways of looking at post-natal illness. The paper concludes that biological and psychological approaches do not provide complete explanations and a multidisciplinary approach is needed. Most significantly the woman's own perception of post-natal ill health is largely absent from the literature. The need for an approach using ethnographic methods is highlighted.

School nurses have welcomed the document, School Nursing within the Public Health Agenda: A Strategy for Practice (DeBell and Jackson 2000) as a forward-thinking and relevant piece of work. The result of a stock-taking of school nursing across the country, it aimed to explore current issues of delivering a service to meet the needs of the school-aged population, reach a consensus on a strategy for the delivery of school health services and formulate a work plan in line with current government policy.

Clinical governance, a relatively new term which emerged from last Autumn’s White Paper (DoH, 1997), has the potential to make a lasting impact on health care at every level. Academics, managers, and clinicians are still exploring what clinical governance may mean and await further guidance which is expected by November 1998; some guidance has already been incorporated in the recent Green Paper A First Class Service: Quality in the New NHS (DoH, 1998).