Getting on against the odds: how black and ethnic minority nurses can progress into leadership

This publication aims to encourage managers and clinical professionals to reflect on and share learning and experience of what enables nurses from black and ethnic minority communities to succeed in reaching positions of leadership in the health service. Based on a survey of nurse leaders from these communities across the country, it explores what has been learnt so far by those who have reached positions of seniority in their health service careers, often ‘against the odds’. In particular, it considers: - How big is the problem of developing and retaining sufficient numbers of senior managers and leaders among black and ethnic minority nurses? - What are the key issues and challenges from the perspectives of nurses in leadership positions who are themselves from black and ethnic minorities? - What lessons have been learnt that can help inspire, foster and develop a more representative and inclusive workforce – and crucially, at leadership and senior management levels in nursing

Report of a study on the uptake and use of the 'Managing Change in the NHS' publications

Between December 2001 and March 2002, a team of independent researchers working in collaboration with and assisted by the NCCSDO carried out a telephone survey designed to gain feedback from the field about uptake, use and perceived impact of Organisational Change and Making Informed Decisions on Change. The study gathered a range of useful feedback and views about the two publications, highlighting the importance of evaluation in the process of commissioning research

Developing change management skills: a resource for health care professionals and managers

Developing Change Management Skills is the first of the NHS Service Delivery and Organisation (SDO) Programmes resources aimed primarily at development. Five realistically complex case studies, made up of factual incidents woven into a fictional whole, provide the settings that allow readers to reason on behalf of characters within them. In the process they learn about: 1) The strengths and limitations of different change management approaches in different situations 2) How to group the approaches together to increase their usefulness 3) The importance of applying them rigorously, perceptively and creatively 4) How different results arise when they are used by people with different world views. The cases reflect the range of organisations within the NHS, being set in primary care, mental health and acute services trusts, as well as a strategic health authority. Key players within them include an individual team member, a service leader, and executive and non-executive board members. Readers are encouraged to take opportunities to apply the tools before comparing their thinking with that of the authors. In doing so they will develop skills they can apply within their own settings. It will be of interest to anyone in the NHS trying to initiate change, whether they hold formal leadership positions or not. It will also be of interest to developers and trainers

Self-care and entrepreneurism: An ethnography of soft skills development for higher education staff

Despite the ubiquity of staff soft skills programmes, few studies have examined why and how academic and corporate services staff utilise these programmes for self-care/governance. This study reports on findings from an ethnography of soft-skills learning and development programmes (LDPs) in a UK university, focusing on interviews with programme participants and facilitators. Results suggest that, as social worlds with neoliberal directives, LDPs promote various self-governance activities in the form of entrepreneurism and novel, corporate versions of self-care. Time on LDPs was seen as a chance to, ‘put oneself first,’ examine career options and cultivate sought-after attributes, including self-confidence and assertiveness. Social networking and performance management also emerged as significant issues. Career development was important for all participants; however, perceptions of how to realise this differed. Based on our findings, we propose three types of work-related performance – ‘career nomad,’ ‘reluctant entrepreneur,’ and ‘course hopper’ – constituting a typology for understanding social worlds inhabited by contemporary university professionals. Our study suggests that self-care ‘technologies’ have multiple, competing functions in continuing professional education. While LDPs can help professionals navigate paths through increasingly turbulent organisations, their entrepreneurial ethos and content reflect the market interests they serve

Making informed decisions on change: key points for health care managers and professionals

A booklet, drawing on 'Organisational Change: A review for health care managers, professionals and researchers' (NSCCSDO, 2001), which aims to encourage managers and professionals to reflect on and share what helps and hinders successful change to improve the quality of services

The assembly and use of tethered bilayer lipid membranes (tBLMs)

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015. Because they are firmly held in place, tethered bilayer lipid membranes (tBLMs) are considerably more robust than supported lipid bilayers such as black lipid membranes (BLMs) (Cornell et al. Nature 387(6633): 580–583, 1997). Here we describe the procedures required to assemble and test tethered lipid bilayers that can incorporate various lipid species, peptides, and ion channel proteins

The design of doctorate curricula for practising professionals

Expansion and changes in doctoral education globally have challenged universities to meet the needs of practising professionals. Values and purposes, structure and content and pedagogy of the provision are key considerations. This curriculum evaluation work investigated the views of 68 higher education staff mainly from Europe and North America involved in the development and delivery of professional doctorates on current issues in designing an appropriate curriculum for practitioners. Analysis of views from two international workshops suggested that while the social benefits of practitioner research were acknowledged, staff struggled with tensions in their higher education contexts to manage practitioner-focused elements, including the balance between theory and practice, recognition of practitioner methodologies and provision of appropriate supervision. The paper concludes that a wider understanding of the values and purpose of doctoral education within and beyond the academy is required that recognises the production of knowledge through practice, and supports ethical social action. Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge the participants who took part in the two international workshops for their helpful contributions, and the reviewers for their helpful comments

New strategies to measure intracellular sodium concentrations

Fluorescent ion indicators are widely used to measure ion concentrations in living cells. However, despite considerable efforts in synthesizing new compounds, no ratiometric sodium indicator is available that can be excited at visible wavelengths. Ratiometric indicators have an advantage in that measured fluorescence intensities can be corrected for fluctuations of the indicator concentration and the illumination intensity, which is not possible when non-ratiometric indicators are used. One way to circumvent this problem is to measure fluorescence lifetimes, which are independent of these factors. Another way to overcome the disadvantages of a non-ratiometric indicator dye is to embed it, together with a reference dye, into nanoparticles. By relating the indicator fluorescence to the fluorescence of the reference dye, inhomogeneities in the nanosensor concentration or the illumination intensity can be cancelled out reliably. In this study we compare the benefits and drawbacks of these approaches. © 2010 Copyright SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering

The pivotal role of student assessment in work-integrated learning

Work-integrated learning (WIL) is proliferating in university courses across many countries. Like many educational practices, students’ experience of it is shaped by the assessment processes adopted. Does assessment support or inhibit what WIL seeks to foster? To explore how students experience assessment in WIL, a small-scale investigation was undertaken across faculties in a UK university. Students who had recently undertaken WIL in contexts where it was either tightly coupled or loosely coupled to their programme of study undertook a drawing-stimulated interview about their placement and the role of assessment within it. A thematic analysis was used to discern key themes in student responses. Key issues identified were the importance of assessment in scaffolding learning, the multiple roles of university and workplace staff in assessment, the extent to which assessment practices promote students seeing themselves as becoming practitioners and the reflexive effects of assessment on learning. The paper discusses the implications of these issues for the design of WIL activities