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This article aims to provide an overview of what is occurring within two large District Health Boards in New Zealand: Counties Manukau DHB, ranking number three in relative population size, and Canterbury DHB, number two. The conclusions provide a comparison of these approaches and draw on some of the new developments which are being driven by and through these District Health Boards.

Canterbury DHB have embraced a capability/competency framework while Counties Manukau DHB have chosen an alternative approach, enacting “leadership as a practice approach”. CMDHB have developed a range of development intervention across management and leadership levels while CDHB have chosen a path of HR practices aligned to a capability framework.

The approaches taken by Counties Manukau DHB and Canterbury DHB, while different, are driven by many of the same elements both internally and externally, indeed they might even be considered complementary. A focus on quality and patient safety, the changing dynamics of clinicians and managers, the integration of primary and secondary care and the increasing move to multi‐disciplinary teams who focus on care systems in an environment of increased demand alongside proportionally decreasing resources feature in both and require an adaptation of leadership in a health context.

The approaches taken by the two DHBs are unique to their organisations and the sector, yet provide exemplars of practice for other large health providers. The outcomes will reflect their differences in approach and the specific workforce challenges each faces.

The purpose of this paper is to present an annotated bibliography of the new poetry volumes from the Poet's House 2008 Poetry Showcase.

The titles were selected from the Poet's House 2008 Poetry Showcase as titles that are both challenging and accessible.

This list provides the librarian and reader with a guide to collection development in poetry.

This is one of the few lists of its kind showcasing contemporary poetry.

The figure of the femme fatale is attached to a range of contested meanings around femininity, sexuality and violence. Despite its ambiguity and its origins in art, myth and fiction, the term has proven popular in giving a name to violent articulations of female power in non-fictional settings by journalists. In this chapter, I outline the figure of the femme fatale as an archetype of women's violence that appears throughout Western popular culture, and provide an overview of the term's definitions and cultural meanings. In doing so, I trace the figure's movement across different forms and genres of popular culture. I identify a number of themes in the existing scholarship around the figure: feminist criticism of the figure; the value that feminist film scholars have found in the figure as a symbol of power and sexual transgression; the relationship between the femme fatale, race and the colonial imagination; and the way the idea of the femme fatale has been used in reporting of real-life women's violence.

Ordinary computers are “out”, integrated workstations are “in”, though mostly they are merely computers with a large hard disk, full range of software, a modem, and a menu front‐end for easy access to all this. Dawson Technology Ltd, who launched a new Integrated Workstation (IWS) at their London offices on 19 April, have added a compact disc reader to it and this makes good sense in a library environment. The software included is a menu generator and DOS interface, the Open Access2 integrated package (wordprocessor, spreadsheet, graphics and database) and communications. There is also “ATE” which is an automatic text editor developed by a research team at Leicester Polytechnic especially with library and office tasks in mind. Thus one can sit at the keyboard and use LA NET or other E‐Mail services, external databases, CD‐ROM disk or use full business‐style word and data handling. Subscribers to Dawson's inter‐library lending product AIM or SMS, their serial‐handling package can readily access them from the same terminal. Any data or text generated in or downloaded by these facilities can be automatically edited into any predetermined different format for input to any of the others. If such easy access to all the data of many systems is thought inadvisable nine levels of password protection can be provided. The price is a very modest £3,950 for an IBM AT‐compatible 12MHz machine with 40Mb hard disk, 640K RAM, CD‐ROM reader and all that software, some of it exclusive to the workstation. Should a library have existing equipment of similar capacity the Automatic Text Editor alone is available at £475. The workstation behaved perfectly at the Press demonstration — the only serious misgiving expressed was that if a library were to use AIM, SMS, carry out substantial report‐writing, and be heavily tempted to download into a local database from external databases or CD‐ROM, then 40Mb would fill up quite quickly. Librarians would do well to consider whether 80Mb and extra memory could be afforded from the start. The low price implies that purchasers of the workstation would not need, nor expect to receive, more than token support although training can be provided initially. Details of the workstation or Dawson's systems can be obtained from Dawson Technology Ltd, Cannon House, Folkestone, Kent CT19 5EE (0303–850537).

The authors aim to present findings from their research on the implementation of Unified Assessment (UA) policy and the work of care coordinators who oversee the delivery of support to older people with complex needs.

A mixed methods approach included staff interviews (n=95) and focus groups (n=3).

The care coordinator role is controversial and the lack of common terminology across health and social care obscures its importance. It is seen as a social care responsibility. Limited ownership amongst healthcare professionals leads to tensions in practice. The challenges of breaking down silo thinking embedded in established professional practices are highlighted as are infrastructural and capacity deficits. Disparities between policy intentions and practice means that UA is failing to meet core objectives relating to the delivery of seamless support.

Further research is needed to develop and evaluate evidence‐informed interventions that test solutions to the problems faced in practice and support the delivery of more effective arrangements.

Practice development may be supported by: guidelines that are more prescriptive and include a formal role definition; joint training to promote shared understanding of key concepts; investment in administrative and IT infrastructures; and more coordinated direction at strategic level.

Over a decade has elapsed since the publication of UA Policy Guidance; however, there is limited published evidence on the effectiveness of UA policy and its translation into practice.