Gill Toms, Diane Seddon, Emma Miller and Nick Andrews
Short breaks enable unpaid carers to have a life alongside caring, supporting their physical and emotional well-being. In the UK, short breaks are usually explored during a Carers…
Abstract
Purpose
Short breaks enable unpaid carers to have a life alongside caring, supporting their physical and emotional well-being. In the UK, short breaks are usually explored during a Carers Assessment. The conversations underpinning these assessments require considerable skill and presently there are few tools to support the exploration of short break needs, desired outcomes and options. Images are used in other conversations to enhance communication, help people consider options and broaden thinking. This study aims to explore whether and how stakeholders thought images might support short break conversations.
Design/methodology/approach
To improve access to meaningful short breaks, we need to be guided by the insights of unpaid carers, those they support, practitioners, commissioners and policymakers. We hosted two online involvement events, designed to facilitate the exchange of perspectives and ideas amongst diverse stakeholders. The events explored the acceptability, facilitators and challenges of using images to enhance unpaid carer short break conversations.
Findings
The online events were attended by 47 short break stakeholders. These stakeholders saw merit in using images to support short break conversations. They identified several facilitators and challenges to introducing images into practice. The paper highlights how this learning can inform future research and practice development.
Originality/value
Supporting the well-being of older unpaid carers is a pertinent concern as the number of older unpaid carers continues to grow. This paper reports on how stakeholders have informed the earliest stages of practice and research development in a relevant area and provides a model of involvement that others can emulate.
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Nick Andrews, Deborah Driffield and Vicky Poole
The need for more holistic and inclusive approaches to assessment and care management for older people is widely promoted but difficult to achieve. This paper describes the All…
Abstract
The need for more holistic and inclusive approaches to assessment and care management for older people is widely promoted but difficult to achieve. This paper describes the All Together Now initiative in Swansea, South Wales, which seeks to promote better practice in assessment and care management by actively involving all stakeholders, older people and family carers, and practitioners and service providers from across the statutory and third sectors. The project is underpinned by a relationship‐centred approach based on the belief that an enriched environment of care will only be created when the needs of all stakeholders are acknowledged and given attention. How such a model was used to establish the goals for the project is described, together with the proposed model of evaluation.
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For health and social care services to become truly person-centred requires a fundamentally positive mindset from professionals and care workers, and a willingness to take some…
Abstract
Purpose
For health and social care services to become truly person-centred requires a fundamentally positive mindset from professionals and care workers, and a willingness to take some risks. The purpose of this paper is to explore how this will apply to delivering dementia services, where almost all of the initial impressions are of deficits, disability and disadvantage.
Design/methodology/approach
The co-authors combine their knowledge and experience of supporting and developing staff working in dementia services. The concept of positive risk-taking is explored within the legislative framework of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, Safeguarding and the Care Act 2014.
Findings
Practitioners face a range of challenges when it comes to supporting people living with dementia to take risks through exercising personal choices and making their own decisions. However, the concept of positive risk-taking applies equally to people living with dementia who have or who lack mental capacity in relation to their decision making.
Originality/value
This paper places positive risk-taking within a context of strengths-based, values-based and relationship-based working. Practical tips are offered for putting positive risk-taking into practice.
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Robert Gaizauskas and Yorick Wilks
In this paper we give a synoptic view of the growth of the text processing technology of information extraction (IE) whose function is to extract information about a pre‐specified…
Abstract
In this paper we give a synoptic view of the growth of the text processing technology of information extraction (IE) whose function is to extract information about a pre‐specified set of entities, relations or events from natural language texts and to record this information in structured representations called templates. Here we describe the nature of the IE task, review the history of the area from its origins in AI work in the 1960s and 70s till the present, discuss the techniques being used to carry out the task, describe application areas where IE systems are or are about to be at work, and conclude with a discussion of the challenges facing the area. What emerges is a picture of an exciting new text processing technology with a host of new applications, both on its own and in conjunction with other technologies, such as information retrieval, machine translation and data mining.
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With organizations constantly seeking to grow, remain competitive and meet changing business conditions, the human resources function, like other functions, is under scrutiny to…
Abstract
With organizations constantly seeking to grow, remain competitive and meet changing business conditions, the human resources function, like other functions, is under scrutiny to deliver value‐adding quality services to the business, coupled with a drive to reduce operating costs. Outsourcing “non‐core” activity presents HR with a significant opportunity to focus on those activities that really add value to the bottom line.
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Marc T. Sager and Jeanna R. Wieselmann
This paper aims to explore the epistemic connections between three instructional coaches and a first-year in-service teacher during remote planning and debrief meetings. Prior…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the epistemic connections between three instructional coaches and a first-year in-service teacher during remote planning and debrief meetings. Prior evidence suggests that remote instructional coaching leads to better teaching practices and identifies the instructional coaching moves used to prompt teacher reflection.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the authors utilized quantitative ethnography and epistemic network analysis (ENA) approaches to explore the epistemic frames of three remote university-based instructional coaches as they supported a first-year in-service teacher.
Findings
Quantitative ENA findings shed light on the network connections between instructional coaches and teachers, as well as the epistemic frames observed during planning and debrief meetings. Additionally, the authors provide qualitative findings that complement and reinforce the quantitative results.
Research limitations/implications
All data collection occurred via Zoom, and the class was in a hybrid modality, with some students attending class in person and some attending remotely via Zoom. This unique context could have impacted the epistemic connections surrounding technology and logistics.
Practical implications
This study provides a practical codebook for use in future studies that explores instructional coaching. Findings from this study can be used to inform instructional coaching decisions.
Originality/value
The ENA findings helped deepen the authors' understanding of how instructional coaches can support a first-year in-service teacher during planning and debrief meetings in several ways. Additionally, this study presents a unique context given the COVID-19 pandemic and the remote model of instructional coaching.
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Russell Mannion, Huw Davies, Martin Powell, John Blenkinsopp, Ross Millar, Jean McHale and Nick Snowden
The purpose of this paper is to explore whether official inquiries are an effective method for holding the medical profession to account for failings in the quality and safety of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore whether official inquiries are an effective method for holding the medical profession to account for failings in the quality and safety of care.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a review of the theoretical literature on professions and documentary analysis of key public inquiry documents and reports in the UK National Health Service (NHS) the authors examine how the misconduct of doctors can be understood using the metaphor of professional wrongdoing as a product of bad apples, bad barrels or bad cellars.
Findings
The wrongdoing literature tends to present an uncritical assumption of increasing sophistication in analysis, as the focus moves from bad apples (individuals) to bad barrels (organisations) and more latterly to bad cellars (the wider system). This evolution in thinking about wrongdoing is also visible in public inquiries, as analysis and recommendations increasingly tend to emphasise cultural and systematic issues. Yet, while organisational and systemic factors are undoubtedly important, there is a need to keep in sight the role of individuals, for two key reasons. First, there is growing evidence that a small number of doctors may be disproportionately responsible for large numbers of complaints and concerns. Second, there is a risk that the role of individual professionals in drawing attention to wrongdoing is being neglected.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first theoretical and empirical study specifically exploring the role of NHS inquiries in holding the medical profession to account for failings in professional practice.
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John Blenkinsopp, Nick Snowden, Russell Mannion, Martin Powell, Huw Davies, Ross Millar and Jean McHale
The purpose of this paper is to review existing research on whistleblowing in healthcare in order to develop an evidence base for policy and research.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review existing research on whistleblowing in healthcare in order to develop an evidence base for policy and research.
Design/methodology/approach
A narrative review, based on systematic literature protocols developed within the management field.
Findings
The authors identify valuable insights on the factors that influence healthcare whistleblowing, and how organizations respond, but also substantial gaps in the coverage of the literature, which is overly focused on nursing, has been largely carried out in the UK and Australia, and concentrates on the earlier stages of the whistleblowing process.
Research limitations/implications
The review identifies gaps in the literature on whistleblowing in healthcare, but also draws attention to an unhelpful lack of connection with the much larger mainstream literature on whistleblowing.
Practical implications
Despite the limitations to the existing literature important implications for practice can be identified, including enhancing employees’ sense of security and providing ethics training.
Originality/value
This paper provides a platform for future research on whistleblowing in healthcare, at a time when policymakers are increasingly aware of its role in ensuring patient safety and care quality.
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Richard R. Johnson, Robert L. Carraway, Ervin R. Shames and Paul W. Farris
Benecol Spread, a cholesterol-lowering margarine, was a product with unusual media-planning challenges. With a narrow target group and unproven market potential, Johnson & Johnson…
Abstract
Benecol Spread, a cholesterol-lowering margarine, was a product with unusual media-planning challenges. With a narrow target group and unproven market potential, Johnson & Johnson needed to get the most “bang for the buck” from its Benecol advertising. Would a media-planning model (optimizer) requiring executives to quantify their judgment on several key inputs be helpful in this process? A spreadsheet accompanying the case allows students to weight the target groups and to choose among different advertising vehicles to form the best possible media plan.
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![University of Virginia Darden School Foundation](/insight/static/img/university-of-virginia-darden-school-foundation-logo.png)
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NICK MOORE, WILFRED ASHWORTH, SHAUN TRAYNOR, JOHN S ANDREWS and PAT JONES
Currently in Great Britain 12.9% of the workforce are unemployed — over three million people. Within this overall total there are considerable variations in the levels of…
Abstract
Currently in Great Britain 12.9% of the workforce are unemployed — over three million people. Within this overall total there are considerable variations in the levels of employment in different parts of the country. Even within individual local authorities there will be sizeable differences in the actual size of unemployment from one town to another.