Perinatal mental health : preparing the future nursing workforce

Perinatal mental health (PMH) problems occur during pregnancy and up to a year after giving birth. They can have a significant effect on the mother and family, and can affect the social, emotional and cognitive development of the child. PMH nursing is gaining increasing recognition in national policy; additional funding has been announced to align national perinatal services with agreed standards and the perinatal workforce has been identified as an area of growth. The PMH competency framework published by Health Education England and the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, London, is aimed at training staff to deliver high-quality care to women who experience mental health problems during the perinatal period. However, the framework does not address the competencies required from the emerging workforce: nursing students. The pre-registration nursing curriculum must align with PMH competencies to ensure that nursing students become competent practitioners who are adequately prepared to care for the PMH needs of the mother and family

Does integrated health and care in the community deliver its vision? A workforce perspective

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore and capture workforce perceptions, experiences and insights of the phenomena of integrated care (IC) in a community health and care NHS trust in England; including whether there are any associated factors that are enablers, barriers, benefits or challenges; and the level of workforce engagement in the process of integrated health and care. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative design based on an interpretivist research paradigm was used with a purposive sampling technique. Five in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with community nursing, social workers and allied health professionals. Colaizzi’s (1978) descriptive phenomenological seven-step method was applied to analyse data, with the emergence of 170 significant statements, 170 formulated meanings and 8 thematic clustering of themes to reveal 4 emergent themes and 1 fundamental structure capturing the essential aspects of the structure of the phenomenon IC. Findings – This study revealed four interdependent emergent themes: (1) Insight of IC and collaboration: affording the opportunity for collaboration, shared goals, vision, dovetailing knowledge, skills and expertise. Professional aspirations of person-centred and strength-based care to improve outcomes. (2) Awareness of culture and professionalism: embracing inter-professional working whilst appreciating the fear of losing professional identity and values. Working relationships based on trust, respect and understanding of professional roles to improve outcomes. (3) Impact of workforce engagement: participants felt strongly about their differing engagement experience in terms of restructuring and redesigning services. (4) Impact of organisational structure: information technology (IT) highlighted a barrier to IC as differing IT platforms prevent interoperability with one system to one patient. Shared positivity of IC, embracing new ways of working. Originality/value – This study proposes considerations for future practice, policy and research from a local, national and global platform, highlighting the need for any IC strategy or policy to incorporate the uniqueness of the “voice of the workforce” as a key enabler to integration developments, only then can IC be a fully collaborative approach

The availability of land for perennial energy crops in Great Britain

This paper defines the potentially available land for perennial energy crops across Great Britain as the first component of a broader appraisal undertaken by the ‘Spatial Modelling of Bioenergy in Great Britain to 2050’ project. Combining data on seven primary constraints in a GIS reduced the available area to just over 9 M ha (40% of GB). Adding other restrictions based on land cover naturalness scores to represent landscape considerations resulted in a final area of 8.5 M ha (37% of GB). This distribution was compared with the locations of Miscanthus and SRC willow established under the English Energy Crop Scheme during 2001–2011 and it was found that 83% of the planting fell within the defined available land. Such a correspondence provides confidence that the factors considered in the analysis were broadly consistent with previous planting decisions

Improving the psychological evaluation of exercise referral: psychometric properties of the Exercise Referral Quality of Life Scale

There is a growing need to assess the psychological outcomes of exercise referral and the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence has called for the routine assessment of life-quality. However, a quality of life scale specific to the requirements of exercise referral is currently unavailable. Therefore, the aim of this study was to produce a quality of life measure for this purpose. The Exercise Referral Quality of Life Scale is a 22-item measure comprising three domains: mental and physical health, injury pain and illness and physical activity facilitators. Exploratory factor analysis determined the initial factor structure and was subsequently confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. Additional scale properties were also assessed. The scale contributes to the global need for improved consistent psychological outcome assessment of exercise referral

Effective communication with older people

Effective communication with older people is an important aspect of nursing practice. Ineffective communication can lead to older people feeling inadequate, disempowered and helpless. Nurses have a duty to ensure that older people think they are being listened to and that their concerns are being validated in a non-judgemental way. Central to effective communication is the ability of nurses to be self-aware, and monitor their thoughts and feelings about, for example, negative stereotypes associated with the ageing process. Effective communication can sometimes be difficult to achieve due to the effects of ageing, but nurses can overcome some barriers through thoughtful interventions. It is important to treat older people as individuals, and to monitor and adapt communication accordingly. By doing so, nurses can ensure older people feel empowered, respected and able to maintain their independence

Progression in practice.

This document represents a statement of the strategic approach taken by MOVE Lifelong Learning Network in addressing its key mission to bring about a step change in progression within the East of England region. It focuses on the development and implementation of progression accords as the means to instigate and sustain cultural change in the institutional practices that surround progression to higher education in the region and in the broader higher education sector. Much of the approach and the details of the MOVE progression accord model described here is taken from an earlier text entitled ‘An introduction to the theory and practice of MOVE progression accords’ (Betts and Bravenboer: 2008) which was published in Seminar report on progression agreements and accords (HEFCE: May 2008)

Establishing effective diploma progression pathways.

This paper builds on a previous paper delivered at the 3rd Annual 14-19 Diploma conference (September 2008) outlining some of the risks to the effective implementation of Diplomas. The risks identified include limited recognition of the Diploma as an equivalent entry qualification to HE and limited engagement in the development of Diplomas by the HE sector. The paper describes some of the ways in which Lifelong Learning Networks can address these risks focusing on the benefits of introducing progression accords. A range of case study examples are provided from the Construction and Built Environment and Creative and Media sectors. The examples discussed provide significant evidence of how the use of progression accords has led to Diploma endorsement from a wide range of higher education institutions

Progression accords, additional student numbers and development funds.

This paper considers the Higher Education Funding Council for England's (HEFCE's) strategic priorities for Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs) in relation to the regional context of the East of England. It describes how some of the key change mechanisms available to LLNs are starting to have an impact in relation to these priorities. The mechanisms discussed include the strategic distribution of Additional Student Numbers (ASNs) and the allocation of development funding to address barriers to progression and provide new progression routes for learners progressing to higher education through vocational and work-based routes. The paper also describes a specific model of Progression Accord adopted by the LLN and some early data demonstrating impact in the region. Lastly, the paper identifies nest steps in sharing best practice in progression through the evaluative monitoring of Progression Accords and the further development of their use in relation to Diplomas and Advanced Apprenticeships