Fit to practise? Processes for dealing with misconduct among pharmacists in Australia, Canada, the UK and US

© 2018 Elsevier Inc.In many countries with legal systems based on English common law, pharmacy regulators have a responsibility to protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of patients. Where there is a potential risk to patient safety, or where the public's confidence in pharmacy could be adversely affected by the actions of a pharmacist, these regulators have a statutory duty to investigate concerns. The legal provisions underpinning each jurisdiction's disciplinary processes depict distinctive outlooks from the different authorities, as each works towards the same goal. Legal statues, regulations, rules, and guidance affecting the disciplinary process in Great Britain, Australia, New York and New Brunswick were collated, and the processes they describe were attached to a common process flow diagram for step-by-step evaluation of their respective legal provisions. The initial stages of the respective investigation process are broadly similar in all the jurisdictions examined; however, each process has subtle differences that afford some level of advantage or disadvantage over its comparators. Factors including: how matters of discipline are framed; the existence of a separate process for minor and uncontested violations; the ability to effect an interim suspension of a practitioner's license; threshold criteria for escalation of complaints; the membership of disciplinary panels; and the perceived independence of these panels all philosophically affect the public safety remit of each regulator. This work constitutes the first comparison of international regulatory frameworks for the profession of pharmacy. Of the four jurisdictions examined, Great Britain most clearly acts in the interest of the public and the profession – rather than the respondent pharmacist – at every step of its process.Peer reviewe

Climate and social studies services: Experiences from country engagements and lessons learned

A framework, created by a team of researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute, supports the integrated analysis of climate change, gender, youth and nutrition

Self-Synchronization in Duty-cycled Internet of Things (IoT) Applications

In recent years, the networks of low-power devices have gained popularity. Typically these devices are wireless and interact to form large networks such as the Machine to Machine (M2M) networks, Internet of Things (IoT), Wearable Computing, and Wireless Sensor Networks. The collaboration among these devices is a key to achieving the full potential of these networks. A major problem in this field is to guarantee robust communication between elements while keeping the whole network energy efficient. In this paper, we introduce an extended and improved emergent broadcast slot (EBS) scheme, which facilitates collaboration for robust communication and is energy efficient. In the EBS, nodes communication unit remains in sleeping mode and are awake just to communicate. The EBS scheme is fully decentralized, that is, nodes coordinate their wake-up window in partially overlapped manner within each duty-cycle to avoid message collisions. We show the theoretical convergence behavior of the scheme, which is confirmed through real test-bed experimentation.Comment: 12 Pages, 11 Figures, Journa

Effects of post-abortion family planning services on contraceptive practices in China : protocol for a clustered randomized controlled trial

Study objectives: To determine whether integrating post-abortion services in hospital settings in China will increase the contraceptive use and decrease repeat abortion rates. Study design: Three-arms cluster randomised controlled trial in which the unit of randomisation is hospital. Participants: Women seeking induced abortion within 12 weeks of gestation age. Sites: Ninety hospitals from 30 provinces in China will be randomised to the three arms of the study stratified by province. In each province, eligible hospitals will be matched on the characteristics of abortion departments, especially the volume of abortions in the 2 months in the situation survey. Length of follow up: Six months. Intervention: Multiple interventions that aim to increase the use of more effective contraceptive methods, improve user adherence to reduce the unintended pregnancies and repeat induced abortions. Data collection: Data will be collected at four time points, one at baseline(month 0 at the time of enrolment) and twice during intervention (1st 3rd and 6th month after enrolment, respectively). Primary outcome: Unintended pregnancies or repeated induced abortions; immediate contraceptive uptake and the use of modern effective contraceptive methods

Soft governance, restratification and the 2004 general medical services contract:the case of UK primary care organisations and general practice teams

In the UK National Health Service, primary care organisation (PCO) managers have traditionally relied on the soft leadership of general practitioners based on professional self-regulation rather than direct managerial control. The 2004 general medical services contract (nGMS) represented a significant break from this arrangement by introducing new performance management mechanisms for PCO managers to measure and improve general practice work. This article examines the impact of nGMS on the governance of UK general practice by PCO managers through a qualitative analysis of data from an empirical study in four UK PCOs and eight general practices, drawing on Hood's four-part governance framework. Two hybrids emerged: (i) PCO managers emphasised a hybrid of oversight, competition (comptrol) and peer-based mutuality by granting increased support, guidance and autonomy to compliant practices; and (ii) practices emphasised a broad acceptance of increased PCO oversight of clinical work that incorporated a restratified elite of general practice clinical peers at both PCO and practice levels. Given the increased international focus on the quality, safety and efficiency in primary care, a key issue for PCOs and practices will be to achieve an effective, contextually appropriate balance between the counterposing governance mechanisms of peer-led mutuality and externally led comptrol

Improving the Quality of Population Census 2008

Census data generates information on total population count and its various socio-economic and demographic characteristics disaggregated by age and sex from national to provincial and down to district, tehsil and village level. The utility of these data is crucial for studying historical trends and for planning and formulating development programmes, especially for the recently devolved set up of administration. The next Population and Housing Census is likely to be carried out in 2008. The procedure of census data collection is lengthy and costly, and data compilation and its tabulation are subject to errors and inadequacies which have strong implications for policy formulation. Reporting errors during the data collection stage are also common, which need to be minimised...........................This Policy Viewpoint has been prepared by Naushin Mahmood, Ghulam Yasin Soomro, G. M. Arif, M. Framurz Khan Kiani, and Khalid Hameed Sheikh

Running out of oxygen. The financial condition of Italian political parties

Electoral competition is quite expensive. The prevalent idea in Western coun-tries is that public funding may contribute to and preserve the system’s fairness and plu-ralism, defending political parties from the influence of big money. However, the Italian reform of political funding approved in 2014 appears to move in an opposite direction, encouraging political players to extract private sources while discarding public support. Such a choice entails hazards associated with several current phenomena, including sys-tem transparency, financial appeals from competing players and the rising personaliza-tion of politics. This article describes the financial status of the major Italian political parties in 2013 and 2018, with an emphasis on the allocation of private funds. Unfor-tunately, political parties’ responses to the new regulation came late, resulting in signifi-cant variations and disparities. Private money needs regulation and restrictions before being established as the primary source of revenue for political competition. At present, Italian political parties are left with few guidelines and appear to be navigating by sight

India Country Profile

[From Introduction] This country study for India is part of the ILO project \u27Employment of People with Disabilities – the Impact of Legislation\u27 which aims to enhance the capacity of national governments in selected countries of Asia and East Africa to implement effective legislation concerning the employment of people with disabilities. Starting with a systematic examination of laws in place to promote employment and training opportunities for people with disabilities in selected countries of Asia and the Pacific (Australia, Cambodia, China, Fiji, Japan, India, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and Thailand), the project sets out to examine the operation of such legislation, identify the implementation mechanisms in place and suggest improvements Technical assistance is provided to selected national governments in implementing necessary improvements. The country study outlines the main provisions of the laws in place in India concerning the employment of people with disabilities. A brief review of the implementation of the legislation is also provided, insofar as this was possible, based on a survey of documentary sources, a study by an in-country consultant and feedback from Indian delegates to a Project Consultation held in Bangkok, 17 January 2003. It may be read in conjunction with the regional overview prepared for this Consultation \u27Employment of People with Disabilities – the Impact of Legislation (Asia and the Pacific). Project Consultation Report, Bangkok 17 January\u27, ILO 2003