What Should I Do? What Would You Do?: A Counselling Psychologist’s Interpretation

This article is the product of being asked to reflect on the practice of counselling psychology as an interpretative practice.  The author illustrates how her work as a student clinician is nothing but interpretive, and argues that interpretation is a necessary means of understanding and moving with one’s client throughout the therapy process.

The Glycemic Index

The glycemic index is a ranking of carbohydrate containing foods. Foods are ranked according to their immediate effect on blood sugar levels. The higher a food raises blood sugar, the higher its glycemic inde

Preserving Tomatoes

This publication provides information of preserving tomatoes by freezing, canning, and drying, and includes recipes

HLA DRB1, DQA1, DQB1 and DPB1 polymorphisms in Namibian Khoi and San and in the Xhosa and South African mixed-ancestry population

We have analysed the HLA allele distributions in unrelated Namibian Khoi and San and South African Xhosa and mixed-ancestry (so-called Cape coloured) populations. The allelic specificities of the DRB1, DQA1, DQB1 and DPB1 loci were determined. We found loss of allelic diversity and predominance of certain alleles to be more pronounced in the San than in the Khoi. By contrast, the Xhosa indicated wide allelic diversity especially at the DRB1 and DPB1 loci. We found evidence that the Caucasoids may have been derived from an early migration wave, whereas African blacks arose from a later migration wave of an ancestral population pre-dating ethnic diversity. Frequencies in the Xhosa for the DRB10302, 1101, 1302 and 1304 alleles revealed clinal variation in a north-south direction across the African continent. For the DRB1, DQA1, DQB1 haplotypes there was greater variation in the Khoi than in the San, in whom certain haplotypes predominated. We found 13 previously unreported haplotypes. In Xhosa we found 30 different DRB1, DQA1, DQB1 haplotypes. Allele and haplotype characteristics and frequencies in the South African mixed-ancestry population were mostly intermediate between those found in Xhosa and reported for Caucasoids, and three possible ancestral southern African DRB1, DQB1, DPB1 haplotypes were found. We discuss the implications of our findings for organ donor transplantation in Xhosa and in the South African mixed-ancestry population

Does involving male partners in antenatal care improve healthcare utilisation? : Systematic review and meta-analysis of the published literature from low- and middle-income countries

This work was supported by the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP), Ministry of Finance, Republic of Indonesia (grant no. 20160612046995).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Failure demand: a concept evaluation in UK primary care

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess failure demand as a lean concept that assists in waste analysis during quality improvement activity. The authors assess whether the concept’s limited use is a missed opportunity to help us understand improvement priorities, given that a UK Government requirement for public service managers to report failure demand has been removed. Design/methodology/approach The authors look at the literature across the public sector and then apply the failure demand concept to the UK’s primary healthcare system. The UK National Health Service (NHS) demand data are analysed and the impact on patient care is elicited from patient interviews. Findings The study highlighted the concept’s value, showing how primary care systems often generate failure demand partly owing to existing demand and capacity management practices. This demand is deflected to other systems, such as the accident and emergency department, with a considerable detrimental impact on patient experience. Research limitations/implications More research is needed to fully understand how best to exploit the failure demand concept within wider healthcare as there are many potential barriers to its appropriate and successful application. Practical implications The authors highlight three practical barriers to using failure demand: first, demand within the healthcare system is poorly understood; second, systems improvement understanding is limited; and third, need to apply the concept for improvement and not just for reporting purposes. Originality/value The authors provide an objective and independent insight into failure demand that has not previously been seen in the academic literature, specifically in relation to primary healthcare

Patient and primary care delays in the diagnostic pathway of gynaecological cancers : a systematic review of influencing factors

Funding This work was funded by an NHS Education for Scotland Clinical Academic Fellowship.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Public Archaeologies from the Edge

The chapter serves to introduce the first-ever book dedicated to public archaeologies of frontiers and borderlands. We identify the hitherto neglect of this critical field which seeks to explore the heritage, public engagements, popular cultures and politics of frontiers and borderlands past and present. We review the 2019 conference organised by Uiversity of Chester Archaeology students at the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, which inspired this book, and then survey the structure and contents of the collection. We advocate that public archaeologies should seek to incorporate and foreground perspectives ‘from the edge’. By this we mean public archaeology should make frontiers and borderlands – including the people living with them and seeking to traverse them – paramount to future work

How did the publication of the book The Machine That Changed The World change management thinking? Exploring 25 years of lean literature

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to take a critical, analytical approach to explore the growth and spread of lean through the academic and practitioner community over the last twenty-five years. Design/methodology/approach A comprehensive and systematic review of the extant of literature of lean was undertaken. The review spans from 1988 to 2013. To enable us to effectively manage and understand the diffusion of this set of literature a database, the Lean Publications Database (LPD), was constructed. Findings Lean has evolved to be one of the best-known, yet fiercely debated, process improvement methodologies. It emerged during a proliferation of such methodologies in business and management literature. Lean has developed from a generic description of Toyota Production System (TPS) to a particular type of organizational and management intervention focused on best practice and process improvement methodologies. Research limitations/implications This paper provides the first comprehensive review of the Lean literature, from the perspective of Lean as the unit of analysis. It covers both sides of the academic debate and categories the progression of Lean from its origins as a generic description of TPS to a movement that has change management systems in many and diverse sectors. Practical implications This paper demonstrates how Lean research, application and thinking has evolved over 25 years from its origins in explaining the performance improvements in Japanese auto-manufacturing to a holistic value system that is applicable to all business sectors, both private and public. Originality/value This study is original in that provides a different perspective to that of most previous studies. In most empirical studies on Lean, the unit of analysis is the organisation. However, in this study, the unit of analysis is the Lean phenomenon itself and represents a first step to developing an underpinning theory of Lean by linking it to the theory of swift, even flow (Schmenner and Swink, 1998), as such, it of interest to academics in the field of operations management and contributes to knowledge. It is also likely to be of interest to policy makers. Considerable amounts of public money have been spent, and continue to be spent, on promoting Lean. Taxpayers and policymakers are likely to be interested in whether that expenditure is justifiable. Twenty-five years of publications have been analysed to provide clarity around this popular approach to improvement