The cost of a night nursing service at Rennie Grove Hospice Care (RGHC), and the total community cost of care at home compared to an admission to hospital

Background. RGHC runs a Hospice at Home service providing 24/7 care. An independent study calculated the cost of a RGHC visit and the total community cost of home care, including all health care professional (HCP), carer, and family member visits. Methods. Over a period of 145 days, 550 calls and 335 visits made to/by the night team were recorded, averaging 3.79 per night. The salary cost per hour for each nurse, plus organizational add on costs, was calculated. To derive a total community cost, 35 families, considered by the nursing team to be able to consent, kept a diary for up to two-weeks, recording all HCP, carer and family support visits and duration of each visit. 17 diaries were returned. Descriptive analysis was used with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS v22). Costs were taken for HCPs and social care services from the PSSRU data 2015/16. Results. The average length of the diaries was 10.4 days. For 3.79 visits per night the cost per visit was £195 (taking into consideration that RGHC nurses travel in pairs). The 17 patient diaries covered a total of 177 days and showed a range of visits and complexity of care. RGHC staff provided 19% of the care at a cost of £3295; district nurses 13%, cost £2005; and formal carers 55% at a cost of £1344. 23 GPs visits comprised 4% of all visits but 15% of total costs. MacMillan/Marie Curie nurses accounted for just 2% of visits but 19% of cost as they stayed overnight. The entire cost of 177 days of care for 17 patients at end of life was £11,814; ie £66.7 per day as care was not needed every day of each diary period. Conclusions. The cost of home care seems acceptable, compared to the national average cost of a day in an inpatient specialist palliative care bed at £397-£400 (Data.Gov.UK 2015)

National mapping of teacher professional learning project : final report

This report gives an account of a twelve month mapping project into the policies and practices of teacher professional learning in Australia, and provides guidelines for quality professional learning into the future. The project was funded by the former Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), which has since become the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). The assistance of schools and school principals, statutory bodies, universities, and professional associations from around Australia is gratefully acknowledged. We acknowledge, also, the support and professional engagement of members of the ‘Mapping’ Reference Group throughout this project. Lastly, we appreciate the contribution of all those teachers, school leaders and members of non-school stakeholder bodies who completed survey questionnaires and/or participated in interviews. The views expressed in the report are those of the authors and not necessarily of DEEWR or any other individual or organisation

UK climate and socio-economic scenario data products. Workshop report

The workshop took place to discuss some of the outputs of the UK-SCAPE (UK Status Change and Projections of the Environment) programme being undertaken by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology as part of its NERC-funded National Capability portfolio. SPEED (Spatially-explicit Projections of EnvironmEntal Drivers) is a work package within UK-SCAPE, which is producing projections of key environmental variables for the UK over the 21st century, including climate, socio-economics, land use and pollution. The aim is to produce linked and consistent sets of variables that can be used by the wider community in researching future environmental change. This will ensure consistency among different projects (see https://ukscape.ceh.ac.uk/our-science/projects/SPEED for further information)

Shaping the development of the UKCEH UK-SCAPE Data Science Framework. Workshop report

UKCEH held an event to share progress on the development of the UK-SCAPE Data Science Framework (DSF), explore community expectations for the DSF and get feedback from the participants on whether the DSF will meet their needs. Participants were able to offer feedback through interactive voting sessions, breakout groups and a feedback form

Evidence for increases in vegetation species richness across UK Environmental Change Network sites linked to changes in air pollution and weather patterns

We analysed trends in vegetation monitored at regular intervals over the past two decades (1993–2012)at the twelve terrestrial Environmental Change Network (ECN) sites. We sought to determine the extent to which flora had changed and link any such changes to potential environmental drivers. We observed significant increases in species richness, both at a whole network level, and when data were analysed within Broad Habitat groupings representing the open uplands, open lowlands and woodlands. We also found comparable increases in an indicator of vegetation response to soil pH, Ellenberg R. Species characteristic of less acid soils tended to show more consistent increases in frequency across sites relative to species with a known tolerance for strongly acidic soils. These changes are, therefore, broadly consistent with a response to increases in soil solution pH observed for the majority of ECN sites that, in turn, are likely to be driven by large reductions in acid deposition in recent decades. Increases in species richness in certain habitat groupings could also be linked to increased soil moisture availability in drier lowland sites that are likely to have been influenced by a trend towards wetter summers in recent years, and possibly also to a reduction in soil nitrogen availability in some upland locations. Changes in site management are also likely to have influenced trends at certain sites, particularly with respect to agricultural practices. Our results are therefore indicative of wide-scale responses to major regional-scale changes in air pollution and recent weather patterns, modified by local management effects. The relative consistency of management of ECN sites over time is atypical of much of the wider countryside and it is therefore not appropriate to scale up these observations to infer national scale trends. Nevertheless the results provide an important insight into processes that may be operating nationally. It will now be necessary to test for the ubiquity of these changes using appropriate broader spatial scale survey data

Trends and variability in weather and atmospheric deposition at UK Environmental Change Network sites (1993–2012)

We characterised temporal trends and variability in key indicators of climate and atmospheric deposition chemistry at the twelve terrestrial UK Environmental Change Network (ECN) sites over the first two decades of ECN monitoring (1993–2012) using various statistical approaches. Mean air temperatures for the monitoring period were approximately 0.7 °C higher than those modelled for 1961–1990, but there was little evidence for significant change in air temperature over either the full monthly records or within individual seasons. Some upland ECN sites, however, warmed significantly over the first decade before cooling in the second. Summers at most sites became progressively wetter, and extremes in daily rainfall increased in magnitude. Average wind speeds in winter and spring declined at the majority of sites. Directional trends in summer precipitation could be linked to an atypically prolonged negative deviation in the summer North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) Index. Several aspects of air quality improved markedly. Concentrations and fluxes of sulphate in precipitation declined significantly and substantially across the network, particularly during the earlier years and at the most polluted sites in the south and east. Precipitation concentrations of nitrate and ammonium, and atmospheric concentrations of nitrogen dioxide also decreased at most sites. There was less evidence for reductions in the loads of wet deposited nitrogen species, while trends in atmospheric ammonia concentration varied in direction and strength between sites. Reductions in acid deposition are likely to account for widespread gradual increases in the pH of soil water at ECN sites, representing partial recovery from acidification. Overall, therefore, ECN sites have experienced marked changes in atmospheric chemistry and weather regimes over the last two decades that might be expected to have exerted detectable effects on ecosystem structure and function. While the downward trend in acid deposition is unlikely to be reversed, it is too early to conclude whether the trend towards wetter summers simply represents a phase in a multi-decadal cycle, or is indicative of a more directional shift in climate. Conversely, the first two decades of ECN now provide a relatively stable long-term baseline with respect to air temperature, against which effects of anticipated future warming on these ecosystems should be able to be assessed robustly

"The very ugly duckling" meets Minecraft: identity work and interpretive competence

Picturebook discussions are commonplace literacy events in contemporary classrooms. The different experiences, backgrounds and ways of being that individual students draw upon during talk around texts prompt a broad range of ways to make, negotiate and share meanings. In addition to developing students' literacy skills such as oral language, vocabulary and comprehension, these discussions have been shown to be instrumental in developing students' interpretive competence which is important for achieving learning outcomes. In this article, we report a study that investigated how four diverse groups of 10- and 11-year-old students and teachers from two schools experienced such reading events. The study found that making sense of these books was more productive when students were given permission to switch identities and make connections to their out-of-school cyber and popular culture worlds. Using discourse analytic techniques, we uncover the identity work during a number of discussions around two different picturebooks and show how this enabled these learners to enter the academic space and demonstrate interpretive competence