Work intensification and employment insecurity in professional work

Professional work is a category of employment that has traditionally been associated with high levels of worker autonomy, economic and social status. During the past decade, changes in customer expectations, government policy and technology have generated pressures resulting in enhancement of the quality and efficiency of service provision, expansion in task requirements and a need for higher levels of discretion. In this sense, professional work has been upgraded. However, the changes have also led to a deterioration in the economic and social status of professional work, adversely impacting on the social and psychological well-being of professional workers. This paper examines these developments in five professions including two established professions (lawyers and pharmacists), one aspiring profession (midwives) and two emerging professions (counselling psychologists and human resource managers). The empirical findings are based on a survey of 1270 professional workers conducted in 2000 and 2001

NHS reforms and the working lives of midwives and physiotherapists

From 2000 the NHS was subjected to a series of far reaching reforms, the purposes of which were to increase the role of the primary care sector in commissioning and providing services, promote healthier life styles, reduce health inequality, and improve service standards. These were seen as requiring a greater leadership role from health professionals, closer and more cooperative working between health professionals, and between health professionals, social services, and community and other service providers. The project surveyed a random sample of midwives and physiotherapists to investigate their perceptions of the effectiveness of the reforms, and their effects on working lives. The predominant perception was that NHS reforms had negatively affected the funding of their services; and had done little to improve service quality, delivery or organisation. Although the potential existed for the reforms to improve services, the necessary resources and required staffing were not made available and the objectives of the reforms were only partially secured by intensifying of work. The downside of this was a deterioration of the sociopsychological wellbeing of midwives and physiotherapists, especially the former, exacerbating the shortage of skilled and experienced. Shortage of staff and the associated increased work burdens were demoralising and demotivating; morale and job satisfaction declined, and job insecurity and labour turnover increased

Aggregate resource alternatives : future options for meeting aggregate minerals supply from outside National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The town and country planning system aims to make the best use of land for society as a whole, taking into account a wide range of issues which have a land use dimension; by sustaining the natural environment in which those activities take place; and by managing the resources on which they depend. As mineral resources, and particularly construction mineral resources (principally aggregates), are used to create the ‘goods’ that society ‘needs’ (e.g., housing and infrastructure development), the working of mineral resources is necessary. Planning for, and the working of, aggregate minerals can be a contentious issue with regulators, industry and society, particularly where mineral extraction is undertaken or proposed in areas of high landscape / ecological value. Applications for the working of minerals in such areas come under particularly close scrutiny. This work, funded through the Aggregates Levy, analysed data on the current distribution, sales and reserves of primary, land-won aggregates in England in respect of the contribution made from quarries that are inside National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It also assessed the future potential, and issues surrounding, possible alternative supply options for meeting the quantity of aggregates currently supplied from these designations. Such options include extraction from indigenous resources which lie outside of National Parks and AONBs, intra-UK imports from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, imports from outside the UK, marine dredging, secondary and recycled aggregates

Collation of the results of the 2001 Aggregate Minerals Survey for England and Wales

1.1 Aggregate Minerals (AM) surveys, based at four-yearly intervals since 1973, provide an in-depth and up-to-date understanding of regional and national sales, inter-regional flows, transportation, consumption, and permitted reserves of primary aggregates. These surveys are used to inform Government on the production, movement and consumption of aggregates in order to review and update planning policy guidance

A Robust Metal-Assisted Etching Process for Ag-Catalyzed Texturing of Silicon

Silicon structures with excellent light-trapping performance have been developed using a silver-catalyzed metal-assisted etching (MAE) process. The MAE process can be well controlled through variation in solution composition and exposure times, even whe