Monitoring oral health of people in Early Intervention for Psychosis (EIP) teams: the extended Three Shires randomised trial

Background: The British Society for Disability and Oral Health guidelines made recommendations for oral health care for people with mental health problems, including providing oral health advice, support, promotion and education. The effectiveness of interventions based on these guidelines on oral health-related outcomes in mental health service users is untested. Objective:To acquire basic data on the oral health of people with or at risk of serious mental illness. To determine the effects of an oral health checklist in routine clinical practice. Design: Clinician and service user-designed cluster randomised trial. Settings and Participants: The trial compared a simple form for monitoring oral health care with standard care (no form) for outcomes relevant to service use and dental health behaviour for people with suspected psychosis in Mid and North England. Thirty-five teams were divided into two groups and recruited across 2012-3 with one year follow up. Results: 18 intervention teams returned 882 baseline intervention forms and 274 outcome sheets one year later (31%). Control teams (n=17) returned 366 baseline forms. For the proportion for which data were available at one year we found no significant differences for any outcomes between those allocated to the initial monitoring checklist and people in the control group (Registered with dentist (p=0.44), routine check-up within last year (p= 0.18), owning a toothbrush (p= 0.99), cleaning teeth twice a day (p=0.68), requiring urgent dental treatment (p=0.11). Conclusion: This trial provides no clear evidence that Care Co-ordinators (largely nursing staff) using an oral health checklist improves oral health behaviour or oral health state in those thought to be at risk of psychosis or with early psychosis

The "next steps" initiative for civil service reform in Britain : the emergence of managerialism in Whitehall? by Andrew Hede

Over the past decade there have been a number of initiatives that are indeed bringing about fundamental changes in civil service management in Britain

Principles and Practice of Gender Diversity Management in Australia

In this chapter we present a number of examples of Australian organizations which are acknowledged as implementing programmes at the forefront of gender-based diversity management. Ironically, perhaps, such apparent success stories in the area of gender advancement in the workplace are becoming problematic at the same time as-and perhaps even because of-the growing prominence of terms such as 'diversity management' and 'productive diversity' in academic, corporate and public policy discussions of how to improve organizational performance and achieve competitive advantage. Accordingly, the examples illustrating some of the most advanced current thinking and practice in Australia in gender-based diversity may also illustrate some of the dilemmas that arise from changing paradigms in diversity management generall

Key management factors, contextual factors and business performance : an empirical investigation of their relationship

This study presents the outcome of an investigation of the relationship between key management factors, contextual factors and business performance, and also tests for differences in the management factors according to contextual factors. The results show that for the entire sample, innovation, vision and organisational culture were the key management factors significantly associated with overall business performance. It was also found that managers in the retail and service industries were more likely to emphasise the use of innovation, role models, vision and customer focus than their counterparts in the construction industry; larger firms were more likely to concentrate on innovation and role models; and firms which market their goods and services overseas were more likely to focus on innovation. When management factors were regressed on overall business performance according to contextual factors, vision was a common significant predictor for the manufacturing, retail and construction industries; while innovation was found to be a critical factor for the retail and service industries with creating change also being significant for the latter industry. The significant predictors of business performance for micro firms were vision and creating change; while for small firms innovation was the only key factor and for medium firms articulated vision and presence of a role model were key factors with the latter being negatively associated with performance. Innovation and vision were significant predictors for firms marketing their goods or services locally, while customer focus and innovation were key factors for those marketing goods or services state-wide and overseas respectively