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This paper aims to describe the development, use and evaluation of a web-based mental capacity assessment tool (MCA WAT) within the Learning Disabilities division of a Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Trust in England.

The MCA WAT was developed to ensure there was contemporaneous recording of each capacity assessment; help staff improve their knowledge, confidence and satisfaction in completing assessments of capacity; and analyse the number and type of capacity assessments completed. Three questionnaires were developed: a 12-item multiple-choice knowledge questionnaire, a nine-item confidence questionnaire and a 10-item satisfaction questionnaire, which reflect the five core principles of the MCA (2005). Eight-five health and social care staff who were trained to use the MCA WAT and had used it at least once had their scores from pre- and post-use of the questionnaires analysed using Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests. Data on the use of the MCA WAT was analysed.

Results showed a significant increase in knowledge, confidence and satisfaction from pre- to post-questionnaires. Concerns remain regarding staff understanding of who is the decision maker and the use of communication aids to enhance capacity. These issues are being addressed through training and updating the information boxes in the MCA WAT. The MCA WAT has been used to complete 3,645 capacity assessments over a five-year time scale, covering a wide range of decisions.

This project demonstrates the effectiveness of a contemporaneous method of conducting and recording MCA assessments.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate staff knowledge of Mental Capacity Act (MCA) capacity assessments within the Learning Disabilities division of a Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Trust. The limited research available suggests staff knowledge tends to be poor, particularly concerning who is the decision maker.

A 12-item multiple choice questionnaire, which reflects the five core principles of MCA (2005), was developed. Questionnaires were completed by 262 health and social staff members who support people with LD.

Results show high variability of MCA capacity assessment knowledge within the LD division. However, qualified staff and those from health services scored significantly higher across all categories on the questionnaire compared to non-qualified and social care staff, respectively. On average, all staff scored poorly when asked to identify “who is the decision maker?” in a case scenario question.

The main limitation is that we did not collect data on how many previous capacity assessments and discussions each person had been involved with. The findings clearly suggest current methods of training lack efficacy in helping staff apply MCA knowledge to their clinical work.

Compared to past literature, this study utilised a novel and more comprehensive questionnaire. This focused on case scenario questions to assess staff situational judgement. In addition, the findings add to a sparse evidence base that provides a foundation for future research.

Medeiros et al. (2001) estimate 3.5 million cases of foodborne illness in the USA annually are associated with inadequate cooking of animal foods or cross-contamination from these foods. Past research shows home food handling practices can be risk factors for foodborne illness. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the communication of food safety guidance, specifically safe endpoint temperatures and cross-contamination risk reduction practices, in popular cookbook recipes.

Recipes containing raw animal ingredients in 29 popular cookbooks were evaluated through content analysis for messages related to safe endpoint temperature recommendations and reducing cross-contamination risks.

Of 1,749 recipes meeting study criteria of cooking raw animal ingredients, 1,497 contained a raw animal that could effectively be measured with a digital thermometer. Only 123 (8.2 percent) of these recipes included an endpoint temperature, of which 89 (72.3 percent) gave a correct temperature. Neutral and positive food safety behavior messages were provided in just 7.2 percent (n=126) and 5.1 percent (n=90) of recipes, respectively. When endpoint temperatures were not included, authors often provided subjective and risky recommendations.

Further research is needed on the effect of these results on consumer behavior and to develop interventions for writing recipes with better food safety guidance.

Including correct food safety guidance in cookbooks may increase the potential of reducing the risk of foodborne illness.

Popular cookbooks are an underutilized avenue for communicating safe food handling practices and currently cookbook authors are risk amplifiers.

The literature on construction and project risk management published during the period from 1960 to 1997 is reviewed and analysed to identify trends and foci in research and practice. This analysis is used to identify gaps and inconsistencies in the knowledge and treatment of construction and project risk. The findings suggested that political, economic, financial and cultural categories of construction risk deserve greater research attention, as do those associated with quality assurance, and occupational health and safety. Temporal aspects of risk, and risk communication, are also important fields for investigation.

Generation A, the number of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) entering the workforce in the next decade is expected to increase. However, the employment rate of people with ASD is still very low, and the access to services and support for them is inadequate globally. The research is very limited on understanding neurodiversity-based employment and its success factors. This study aims to fill this important gap via exploring the current inclusive human resource practices being adopted by neurodiversity champion companies. Interviews were conducted with six Irish organizations to identify their neurodiversity and autism practices.

Nursing, as a gendered occupation, is one that requires vast amounts of emotional labor to be performed. As careworkers, nurses are required to assume multiple roles at work: medical expert, companion, and personal care provider. Roles, or expected behaviors associated with different statuses, have the potential to spillover between work and home environments. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate how nurses perceive their role-taking and emotional labor processes to influence experiences of work–family spillover.

Rooted in interactionist role theory, this investigation seeks to qualitatively examine how nurses assign meaning to their various roles and how they perceive their roles to influence work–family spillover. Using audio diary and interview data, this chapter proposes that nurses who practice role-person merger (Turner, 1978) and empathic role-taking (Shott 1979) will also perceive work–family spillover to be related to their caretaking roles as nurses. Three distinct themes emerged in this qualitative analysis related to how experiences of work–family spillover are influenced by the emotional labor demands of the job and the practice of empathic role-taking by nurses: (1) spillover related to required emotional labor is experienced both positively and negatively; (2) nurses actively exercise personal agency in an attempt to decrease negative spillover; and (3) nurses reported increased work–family spillover when they practiced empathic role-taking.

This analysis extends the literature in this area by demonstrating the connection between the structural influences on emotion, the individual perceptions of roles, and the subsequent experiences of work–family spillover.

To report and comment on the case Paul Davidson, Ashley Tatham v. The Financial Services Authority.

Outlines the facts and explains the decision reached.

The Tribunal ruled that the decision of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) which was the subject of the references was unreasonable and it directed that the FSA pay the costs or expenses incurred by the applicants in connection with the proceedings.

With the costs incurred by the applicants being considerable, the paper offers the following warning: challenges to FSA enforcement action before the Tribunal do not come cheap and if successful applicants before the Tribunal then face a costs burden too their victories will often seem somewhat pyrrhic and the incentives for a meaningful level of challenge to FSA enforcement action, with the attendant public and independent airing of what can be vital legal issues for others too, becomes weakened.

This experimental study investigates the connotative (measured) meaning of the concept “auditor independence” within three audit engagement case contexts, including two acknowledged in the literature to represent significant potential threats to independence. The study’s research design utilises the measurement of meaning (semantic differential) framework originally proposed by Osgood et al. (1957). Findings indicate that research participants considered the concept of independence within a two factor cognitive structure comprising “emphasis” and “variability” dimensions. Participants’ connotations of independence varied along both these dimensions in response to the alternative experimental case scenarios. In addition, participants’ perceptions of the auditor’s independence in the three cases were systematically associated with the identified connotative meaning dimensions.

The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the findings from research on the relationship between leadership theory and policy reform in Malaysia. Distributed leadership is normatively preferred in the Malaysia Education Blueprint (MEB), the country’s major policy reform document. The research was conducted in two dissimilar Malaysian states (Selangor and Sarawak).

The research was a multiple case-study design, with 14 schools (seven in each state). Sampling was purposive, with schools selected from the different bands used to categorise school performance in Malaysia. Within each school, interviews were conducted with principals (secondary schools), headteachers (primary schools) and a range of teachers, middle leaders and senior leaders, to achieve respondent triangulation.

The findings confirm that the MEB prescribes distributed leadership as part of a strategy to move principals and head teachers away from their traditional administrative leadership styles. While there were some variations, most schools adopted a modified distributed leadership approach. Instead of the emergent model discussed and advocated in the literature, these schools embraced an allocative model, with principals sharing responsibilities with senior leaders in a manner that was often indistinguishable from delegation.

A significant implication of the research is that policy prescriptions in major reform initiatives can lead to unintended consequences when applied in different cultural contexts. While distributed leadership is presented as “emergent” in the international (mostly western) literature, it has been captured and adapted for use in this highly centralised context, where structures and culture assume a top-down model of leadership. As a result, distributed leadership has taken on a different meaning, to fit the dominant culture.

The main practical implication is that principals and head teachers are more likely to enact leadership in ways which are congruent with their cultural backgrounds and assumptions than to embrace policy prescriptions, even when unproblematic adoption of policy might be expected, as in this centralised context.

The main social implications are that policy change is dependent on socio-cultural considerations and that reform will not be whole-hearted and secure if it is not congruent with the values of institutions such as schools, and the wider society which they serve.

The paper is significant in exploring a popular leadership model in an unfamiliar context. Beyond its importance in Malaysia, it has wider resonance for other centralised systems which have also shown interest in distributed leadership but have been unable and/or unwilling to embrace it in the ways assumed in the literature. This leads to theoretical significance because it adds to the limited body of literature which shows that allocative distributed leadership has emerged as a device for accommodating this model within centralised contexts.