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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how three communication interventions commonly used during discharge planning and care transitions enable inter-professional knowledge sharing and learning as a foundation for more integrated working. These interventions include information communication systems, dedicated discharge planning roles and group-based planning activities.

A two-year ethnographic study was carried out across two regional health and care systems in the English National Health Service, focussing on the discharge of stroke and hip fracture patients. Data collection involved in-depth observations and 213 semi-structured interviews.

Information systems (e.g. e-records) represent a relatively stable conduit for routine and standardised forms of syntactic information exchange that can “bridge” time–space knowledge boundaries. Specialist discharge roles (e.g. discharge coordinators) support personalised and dynamic forms of “semantic” knowledge sharing that can “broker” epistemic and cultural boundaries. Group-based activities (e.g. team meetings) provide a basis for more direct “pragmatic” knowledge translation that can support inter-professional “bonding” at the cultural and organisational level, but where inclusion factors complicate exchange.

The study offers analysis of how professional boundaries complicate discharge planning and care transition, and the potential for different communication interventions to support knowledge sharing and learning.

The paper builds upon existing research on inter-professional collaboration and patient safety by focussing on the problems of communication and coordination in the context of discharge planning and care transitions. It suggests that care systems should look to develop multiple complementary approaches to inter-professional communication that offer opportunities for dynamic knowledge sharing and learning.

Discussions on the appropriate international regime to govern trade in biofuels are in their infancy. However, a large number of countries have set minimum blending targets for biofuels. Meeting these targets will require greater production and increased international trade in biofuels. Concerns exist as to whether unsustainable practices will be used to satisfy this growing demand. There is currently no multilateral agreement governing sustainable production and trade in biofuels. In the absence of an international framework, this paper will seek to demonstrate that concerned countries may unilaterally regulate imports of unsustainably produced biofuels in a way that is consistent with international trade rules. Unilateral regulation is to be understood as a stop gap until multilateral agreement can be reached on the interaction between trade in biofuels and issues of sustainability.

The modernisation agenda in health and social care is concerned with providing an integrated service for patients/clients and their carers. This paper focuses on the nature of practice‐based learning environments that support the development of students as effective interprofessional practitioners for the modernised health and social care services.

This paper describes work with patients/service users, students and educators, resulting in the identification of key issues to be addressed when planning patient/service user participation in interprofessional student learning. Preparation, communication, support and debriefing for both students and lay participants were revealed as essential for successful patient/service user involvement in education.

Testicular cancer affects approximately 550 men in Australia each year. Early intervention, with the potential to reduce the burden of this serious disease, requires a strong understanding of the factors that influence help‐seeking. In the current qualitative retrospective study, the symptom‐recognition and help‐seeking experiences of 11 men aged between 28‐44 years who had undergone treatment for testicular cancer were examined. Analysis of the semistructured telephone interview data indicated that most men sought help early, and were treated promptly. A few men, however, described prolonged help‐seeking delays. The factors implicated in help‐seeking delays included lack of knowledge about testicular cancer; initial misattribution of symptoms; slowly progressing or low‐severity symptoms; a busy lifestyle; embarrassment about having a genital examination; and a fear of orchidectomy and its potential threat to masculinity. Further research using quantitative methodology is required to determine the relative importance of these various factors on help‐seeking delays.

FOLIC ACID AND NEURAL TUBE DEFECTS All women planning pregnancy should increase their intake of folic acid to help prevent the risk of their child being born with spina bifida, says Dr Kenneth Caiman, the Government's Chief Medical Officer. In July 1991, the results of a Medical Research Council trial on the effects of folic acid in preventing recurrence of neural tube defects in subsequent pregnancies were published in The Lancet. The trial showed that the chance of a further child having the defect was much reduced where women had taken 4 milligrams of folic acid daily before conception and through to the 12th week of pregnancy.

This chapter examines the evolving nature of work patterns and income streams for contemporary Musicians in the United Kingdom. It explores the experiences of independent, portfolio career Musicians working in the Rock/Pop/Indie/Jazz Live Music scene. The Music industry is reported to contribute £5.2bn in Gross Value Added (GVA) to the economy, of which according to UK Music (2019) £2.5bn is generated by ‘Creative Sector’ workers, which includes performing Musicians. Despite these high revenues, UK Music (2019) consistently reports that many Musicians earn below the average working wage of other professions. Challenges to Musicians' work and income streams have been compounded by changes in consumption of Music due to digitization, a lack of systematic support from government for grassroots venues and unequal revenue distribution. In this context, we reveal findings from research interviews with Musicians, which were conducted just before and during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic (mainly in the North of England and Wales). Our research discovers how these Musicians utilize informal community mechanisms to navigate poor working conditions, value ‘dignity’ and ‘meaningfulness’ above remuneration and often default to individualist assumptions regarding career success.

This study aims to explore if, with increasing consumer empowerment, consumers are actively pulling content through a multitude of platforms rather than relying on media owners to dictate their product choices. How do media owners and content producers move toward a more reciprocal and interactive business strategy to deal with the change?

The study was qualitative and exploratory in nature and utilized in-depth and semi-structured interviews of media consumers and experts.

Consumer behavior has changed due to increased product control, in terms of type and occasion, across all income levels. The value of curatorship has increased and social media has fundamentally changed consumption patterns. Using the Berthon et al. model of response functions, we found that, content producers often suffer from inertia and operate with an Isolate strategy. The second most common approach is that of Follow or customer orientation. There is limited engagement with the innovation orientations of Shape and Interact. It is best for the industry to move toward an Interact model, accepting that consumers sometimes wish to create and at other times wish content to be effortlessly provided to them.

This study adopted a qualitative approach of industry experts and consumers within a single context. The further implications would be to develop the Interact strategy in more detail, especially toward the end of how to get media providers to change their current orientations.

Business models of product producers in the new business environment seek to be more consumer-centric. This must not be done at the expense of an innovation orientation.

There has been a lot of discussion on the need to change business models in the wake of changed consumer behavior. The current paper provides guidance on how to respond to the new media world.

Within the “wicked” concept of ageing, this paper aims to primarily model an integrated approach to identifying and evaluating opportunities that deliver innovative outcomes in Ageing Well Practice, Health and Economic Policy and Research Actions using a collaborative and entrepreneurial mindset. The strategic focus is on a “Boomer” (user)-driven and facilitated Network – that brings together health professionals, research specialists, technologists, ageing well providers, “encore” career specialists, life-style providers, community groups, wealth creation specialists and industry innovators to streamline the progression of identified concepts to valued users and markets and enhance the economy.

Using the unit of analysis for innovation, i.e. the “added-value” as perceived by the user and not simply a product or a technology, the identified “opportunity-outcome” will embed a new service concept or intervention, which embraces and promotes ageing well, independent living or resident-centred care in the community and delivers direct and indirect economic benefits.

The authors model a point of differentiation in facilitating existing ageing well policies in the community, through a focus on an integrated and multi-dimensional collaborative framework that can deliver user value and contributes to community and economic benefits.

Generalising results without a commercial business case from this single strategic viewpoint requires caution. The positive outcomes from this innovation collaborative concept can be used to guide further policy development and business investment in ageing well needs.

Such an integrated innovation collaborative structure provides the capacity to identify ageing well opportunities, to contract enterprises, both SMEs’ and larger companies, for development of the opportunities into user-valued outcomes, to network venture resources and deliver these outcomes to a sustainable market of ageing well citizens.

The Ageing Well Innovation collaborative framework identifies practical ways to integrate new concepts of ageing participation to be realised by the increasing number of “Boomers”. It provides a self-managing process for linking individuals, public and private parties to maximise information and ideas flow, and engagement of the skilled resources in the Boomer group.

The innovation collaborative structure proposed is not simply novel but is a targeted focus on entrepreneurship and innovation applied strategically to the needs of ageing boomers and community needs. The added-value is in the demonstrated enhancement to effective innovation outcomes in community ageing and the economy.

Keeping individuals safe from harm and exploitation is a clearly articulated goal within both the health and social care sectors. Two key concepts associated with achieving this common aim are safety and safeguarding. The purpose of this paper is to critically appraise the differences in safety terminology used in health and social care, including opportunities and challenges for greater integration of safety systems across health and social care in England.

This paper presents the authors’ viewpoint based on personal, professional and research experience.

In healthcare, safety is usually conceptualised as the management of error, with risk considered on a universal level. In social care, the safeguarding process balances choice and control with individualised approaches to keeping adults safe, but lacks the established reporting pathways to capture safety incidents. Efforts to safely integrate health and social care services are currently constrained by a lack of shared understanding of the concepts of safety and safeguarding without further consideration of how these approaches to keeping people safe can be better aligned. As such, there is a need for a single, unified discourse of patient safety that cuts across the patient safety and safeguarding concepts and their associated frameworks in health and social care settings.

A single unified concept of safety in health and social care could coincide with an integrated approach to the delivery of health and social care, improving the care of patients transitioning between services.