Local taxation, spending and poverty : new choices and tax justice

In the environment of the 2014 Independence Referendum, a number of key questions have been raised about the future Scotland we want to see and live in. Core to such discussions have been the interventions on wealth creation and benefits, by the leaders of the Conservatives and Labour Parties in Scotland, respectively. However, and as rigorously debated in the Whose Economy? Seminar Series (Danson and Trebeck, 2011), such questions need to be considered in their wider contexts to identify and analyse fully all aspects of ‘who pays?’ and ‘who benefits?’. Indeed, several of the papers to that seminar series echoed previous classical work on poverty and the welfare state by Townsend, Abel-Smith and others which confirmed there are some long-standing myths to be addressed. These commentaries have suggested that all is not what it seems in the review of statistics of income and benefits, and robust, objective and clinical assessment of the dat

Narratives of experience: Senior registered nurses working with new graduate nurses in the intensive care unit

The experiences and perceptions of New Graduate Nurses as they transition into professional practice and into intensive care units abounds in the literature. However, there is a dearth of literature exploring the experiences of Senior Registered Nurses who work with New Graduate Nurses in intensive care units. The aim of this inquiry was to contribute to nursing knowledge by examining Senior Registered Nurses’ stories of experience around the complexity of enabling development of New Graduate Nurses whilst working in clinical or team leading roles in the intensive care unit. Thus, allowing the Senior Registered Nurses’ voice to be heard in the literature. Narrative inquiry methodology, underpinned by Dewey’s theory of experience, was used to examine the experiences of five Senior Registered Nurses in one Level 6 intensive care unit. This was achieved by engaging Senior Registered Nurses in individual conversations then co-composing the final individual narrative accounts with participants, whilst remaining immersed in the three-dimensional space of temporality, sociality and place. Thematic analysis methods were used to actively identify two overarching threads that resonated across all five narrative accounts. The first thread, ‘Reverberations’, contained five minor threads: ‘We Carry Them’, ‘It’s Dangerous’, ‘Patrolling Like Surf Lifesavers’, ‘Enjoyable Moments’ and ‘Survival Mode’. The second thread, ‘Caring’, contained three minor threads: ‘I’ve Been There’, ‘They Must Ask Questions’ and ‘Not In My Backyard’. Analysis identified Senior Registered Nurses’ workload and level of patient surveillance increased when working with New Graduate Nurses in the intensive care unit, leading to perceptions of feeling stressed, pressured and overwhelmed. Yet an obligation prevailed to support and care for New Graduate Nurses, perceived by participant Senior Registered Nurses as not yet possessing the clinical skills to independently care for critically ill patients in the dangerous intensive care unit environment. There are significant implications for health care organisations to increase resources to alleviate Senior Registered Nurses’ substantial workload and recognise their essential role in supporting New Graduate Nurses while simultaneously sustaining quality intensive care unit patient care