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This paper aims to explore the content of Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs) from older adult care homes to understand how safety is understood and might be measured in practice.

SARs relevant to older adult care homes from 2015 onwards were identified via the Social Care Institute of Excellence SARs library. Using thematic analysis, initial inductive coding was mapped to a health-derived safety framework, the Safety Measurement and Monitoring Framework (SMMF).

The content of the SARs reflected the dimensions of the SMMF but gaining a deeper understanding of safety in older adult care homes requires additional understanding of how this unique context interacts with these dimensions to create and prevent risks and harms. This review identified the importance of external factors in care home safety.

This study provides an insight into the scope of safety issues within care homes using the SARs content, and in doing so improves understanding of how it might be measured. The measurement of safety in care homes needs to acknowledge that there are factors external to care homes that a home may have little knowledge of and no ability to control.

Research in care homes requires the co-operation of care home managers. Noting the challenges faced by the care home sector, the purpose of this paper is to consider ways in which research studies can encourage care home managers and their homes to participate in research.

The discussion is informed by two research projects which are used to explore methods of encouraging managers of care homes to participate in research. One of the studies included interviews with care home managers to understand their reasons for taking part in research.

This paper outlines and assesses three strategies for encouraging care home managers to participate in research: working in partnership, providing payment and providing personalised feedback on findings. Whereas all the strategies have the potential to encourage care home managers’ participation in research, partnership working in particular was found to be fraught with difficulties.

This paper suggests that the research projects could employ any of these strategies to encourage managers of care homes to participate in research. It also suggests that proactive measures could help ameliorate the pitfalls of partnership working.

This paper shows the advantages and disadvantages of using a combination of strategies for encouraging the participation of care home managers in research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether relatives of care home residents are best placed to act as “champions” or advocates for their family members, as is often the expectation.

Focus groups and interviews were conducted with 25 relatives of residents in four care homes for older people in the South East of England. Two rounds of focus groups were held in each participating care home: the first was to discuss any issues arising from the care received, or concerns about the home itself; the second was to enable a deeper exploration of the key themes that arose from the first round and explore why relatives, in this case, failed to complain.

Thematic analysis revealed a complex range of emotions experienced by relatives that contributed to a conflict between what they believed to be the correct response and how they behaved in reality, which led to a culture of acceptance. Analysis revealed some relatives were reluctant to “interfere” for fear of possible negative repercussions, thus they downplayed issues in an attempt not to “rock the boat”.

This paper discusses the flaws in the policy emphasis on personalisation and the reliance on family members as advocates, and concludes with suggestions on how care homes may foster an environment where relatives, and indeed residents, feel comfortable to raise issues and concerns.

Adopting the lens of ambidexterity, this paper examines decision-making within private technical education providers as they attempt to meet workforce and UK government training demands against a backdrop of unprecedented pace of global change in technology.

Qualitative data, drawn from semi-structured interviews of participants within a private training provider, was analysed thematically to investigate common patterns, clarify understanding and identify development areas to inform government bodies and private provider apprenticeship delivery practices.

The findings reveal the extent to which neoliberalism is potentially undermining technical education reform and increasing regulation whilst decreasing trust and reducing authentic partnerships between key stakeholders, together negatively impacting ambidextrous decision-making.

This study is limited by the use of a monolingual, monocultural sample; therefore, a broader cross-section of respondents from a wider range, size and geographical location of training providers may result in a deeper understanding of the varying tensions and challenges associated with technical education reform.

This work seeks to inform policymakers of the wider consequences of neoliberalism and provide recommendations for government bodies and technical training providers to work collaboratively in seeking solutions to the barriers in delivering vocational training fit for a future-proof workforce.

This paper builds on a limited body of research examining the dual impact of once in a lifetime technological challenges and the consequence of neoliberalism upon ambidextrous decision-making within private providers of post-16 technical education.

The purpose of this research is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the EU's public diplomacy – towards both domestic and external audiences – during times of crisis. The EU's public diplomacy is examined across six major crises: the Eurozone crisis (2008), the Ukrainian crisis (2014), the migrant crisis (2015), the Brexit referendum (2016), the new transatlantic relationship (2017) and the COVID-19 pandemic (2020). The goal of examining these crises in conjunction is to derive policy-relevant insights.

This article adopts a problem-driven approach – the problem being how successful is the EU at public diplomacy during times of crisis – that draws theoretical and empirical insights from Communication Studies, International Relations and EU studies via a “strategic narratives” framework. It situates the EU as a unique public diplomacy actor, one which is becoming more prominent due to the mediatisation of diplomacy, especially driven by the advent of cyberspace.

The article finds that the EU has been experiencing a cycle of crises that have affected the political, economic, symbolic and social foundations of the common project. The EU has had some notable success – such as restoring confidence at the height of the Eurozone crisis – and some notable challenges – such as effectively combatting disinformation. Regardless, the EU has the potential to better manage these and future crises by engaging in an effective public diplomacy strategy that tells a shared European story that informs and inspires people, both domestically and externally.

The article offers an original examination of the EU's public diplomacy response to six different crises. It looks at different types of crises and utilises concepts from different social science perspectives. It offers novel strategic and policy recommendations.

An interesting article by Nick Smith, Head of Information Services at Aston University, appears in Information World Review, No. 65, December 1991, pp. 21–3. The underlying strategy at Aston is not to have an archival library, but to supplement a core collection to meet the immediate needs of staff and students by a wide range of self‐service electronic information sources, interlibrary loans and, eventually, electronic document delivery. There are clearly many problems to be solved, such as the extent to which training in use of the electronic services should (or could) be given, how it is all to be paid for, and even whether the alternative to books and periodicals is entirely acceptable to users. Nick Smith believes that data producers should be willing to offer massive discounts to academic users with unlimited access deals, but it seems evident that as the economic situation worsens attitudes have hardened, driving the university to rely on CD‐ROM‐based network services rather than on‐line sources. Downloading problems evidently cause far more trouble and requests for help than does search strategy. Lack of requests for help on search strategy may, however, be giving false impression that all is well. Users whose search capability is limited could still be receiving information which appears satisfactory to them although an experienced searcher could find much more on the same topics.

Reinterprets data from an empirical study conducted in 1987 – the Nick Experiment – concerned with the interaction between technology, team and task. Combines data with anecdotal evidence. Reports gains in meetings quality and effectiveness. Comments on the potential effectiveness of the messaging facility on the electronic workstations and the electronic blackboard. Comments strongly on the value of field experiments and case studies – as opposed to controlled experiments – to obtain realistic data.

During the academic session 1991/92, a project was carried out to review the strategic and operational management of the staffed public information points in the Library and Information Services at Aston University. Three main methods were used: an analysis of enquiries; a staff attitudes survey; and a customer survey. The main results which emerged were that staff perceived that there was no‐one with overall management responsibility for the service that an on‐going training programme for information point staff should be introduced; and that most customers were satisfied with the existing quality of service and approachability of the staff. Consequently, the Head of Information Services has assumed strategic and operational responsibility for the service; a rolling training programme for staff has been introduced; and a Quality Circle has been established to formulate a Customer Care Policy, and to produce recommendations for continuous improvement of the service.

A study of the use of integrated office systems within the financial services sector.

Manufacturing strategy needs to be appropriate to the needs of the organization acceptable to all employees, and capable of subsequent renewal by management. To achieve this, attention needs to be paid not only to the objectives and framework of the manufacturing strategy, but also to the processes through which the manufacturing strategy is formulated, implemented, and adapted. Argues that these processes are essentially iterative passing through a series of cycles in response to a changing set of conditions. Whilst education and training issues are central to these processes, little research has been carried out. Puts forward one possible approach to dealing with these issues where education and training are handled by analysts external to the organization. This temporary resource or “locum” team works with the organization to achieve the ultimate aim of managers being able to formulate, implement, and review their own manufacturing strategy. This is achieved by helping managers to formulate a manufacturing strategy, providing guidance to them to implement the strategy and setting up monitoring and review mechanisms.