Search results

There has been a rapid development and implementation of crisis resolution home treatment teams (CRHTT) in the UK over the past decade. The available research studies of this service provision to date have largely focused on issues related to the “outputs” of CRHTT, for example cost efficacy and the impact on admission rates. There is limited research on the experiences of clinical psychologists within CRHTT. This is despite the fact that it would seem that research exploring the experiences of mental health professionals in CRHTT is important, as working in a new area of service provision may present specific challenges. An understanding of the nature of these challenges is considered important in order to support clinical psychologists in these settings, and to sustain and improve service delivery.

–This study presents a qualitative exploration of clinical psychologists’ experiences of working in a CRHTT. In total, 11 clinical psychologists were interviewed about their perceptions of working within CRHTT, their relationships with other professionals and their experiences of working with service users in “crisis”. The grounded theory approach was employed to analyse participants’ accounts.

–Two themes were identified: psychological and clinical work and teamwork. The emergent themes are compared to the wider literature on clinical psychologists’ experiences of working in teams, and working with service users in “crisis”.

This research demonstrates the value of a clinical psychology perspective in acute mental health settings. It also highlights the value of a clinical psychological perspective in multi-disciplinary team working. It draws attention to the need for clinical psychologists working in CRHTT settings to be able to more clearly articulate their roles in these services. It points to the importance of clinical psychologists considering the interventions they provide to service users with complex presentations. Also, it highlights their need to consider the psychological interventions they provide in CRHTT settings more generally, as this area of work does not closely align with NICE guidelines.

It is increasingly being recognised that cross‐unit working relationships have a key role to play in the successful implementation of marketing decisions. Although there is a substantial body of literature on marketing's interactions with other functions, particularly technical units such as R&D, within the context of the new product development (NPD) process, linkages between marketing and human resources (HR) have not been empirically investigated although they are widely advocated in both the marketing and HR management literatures. The conceptual model presented and tested in this paper focuses on the antecedents of effective marketing/HR interactions and posits successful marketing strategy implementation as an outcome of these. Results from a study of UK service organisations suggest that implementation effectiveness is affected negatively by conflict and positively by communication and specifically, interpersonal, not written. In turn, these interdepartmental dynamics are affected by senior management support, joint reward systems, and informal integration. A number of conclusions are drawn which have important implications for managers and researchers alike.

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a study considering the application of the Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). Practitioners from a range of professions were recruited to provide their views of how to respond to a variety of scenarios. GPs, nurses, social workers, physio/occupational therapists and care assistants were recruited to participate.

This study used the Delphi method to elicit participant views and generate consensus of opinion. The Delphi method recommends a large sample for heterogeneous groups, and round one had 98 participants from six different professional groups.

Participants did not respond consistently to the scenarios, but disagreed most significantly when patient decisions conflicted with clinical advice, and when to conduct a capacity assessment. These responses suggest that clinical responses vary significantly between individuals (even within settings or professions), and that the application of Mental Capacity Act (MCA) is complicated and nuanced, requiring time for reflection to avoid paternalistic clinical interventions.

Previous studies have not used a Delphi method to consider the application of MCA/DoLS. Because of this methods focus on developing consensus, it is uniquely suited to considering this practice issue. As a result, these findings present more developed understanding of the complexity and challenges for practitioner responses to some relatively common clinical scenarios, suggesting the need for greater clarity for practitioners.

The Food and Drugs Bill introduced by the Government affords an excellent illustration of the fact that repressive legislative enactments in regard to adulteration must always be of such a nature that, while they give a certain degree and a certain kind of protection to the public, they can never be expected to supply a sufficiently real and effective insurance against adulteration and against the palming off of inferior goods, nor an adequate and satisfactory protection to the producer and vendor of superior articles. In this country, at any rate, legislation on the adulteration question has always been, and probably will always be of a somewhat weak and patchy character, with the defects inevitably resulting from more or less futile attempts to conciliate a variety of conflicting interests. The Bill as it stands, for instance, fails to deal in any way satisfactorily with the subject of preservatives, and, if passed in its present form, will give the force of law to the standards of Somerset House—standards which must of necessity be low and the general acceptance of which must tend to reduce the quality of foods and drugs to the same dead‐level of extreme inferiority. The ludicrous laissez faire report of the Beer Materials Committee—whose authors see no reason to interfere with the unrestricted sale of the products of the “ free mash tun,” or, more properly speaking, of the free adulteration tun—affords a further instance of what is to be expected at present and for many years to come as the result of governmental travail and official meditations. Public feeling is developing in reference to these matters. There is a growing demand for some system of effective insurance, official or non‐official, based on common‐sense and common honesty ; and it is on account of the plain necessity that the quibbles and futilities attaching to repressive legislation shall by some means be brushed aside that we have come to believe in the power and the value of the system of Control, and that we advocate its general acceptance. The attitude and the policy of the INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON ADULTERATION, of the BRITISH FOOD JOURNAL, and of the BRITISH ANALYTICAL CONTROL, are in all respects identical with regard to adulteration questions; and in answer to the observations and suggestions which have been put forward since the introduction of the Control System in England, it may be well once more to state that nothing will meet with the approbation or support of the Control which is not pure, genuine, and good in the strictest sense of these terms. Those applicants and critics whom it may concern may with advantage take notice of the fact that under no circumstances will approval be given to such articles as substitute beers, separated milks, coppered vegetables, dyed sugars, foods treated with chemical preservatives, or, in fact, to any food or drug which cannot be regarded as in every respect free from any adulterant, and free from any suspicion of sophistication or inferiority. The supply of such articles as those referred to, which is left more or less unfettered by the cumbrous machinery of the law, as well as the sale of those adulterated goods with which the law can more easily deal, can only be adequately held in check by the application of a strong system of Control to justify approbation, providing, as this does, the only effective form of insurance which up to the present has been devised.

THIS month is that in which librarians of public libraries are concerned with budgets. In spite of occasional croakings, it is fair to say that the worst of the crisis is over, and, if prosperity is not here, it is at least on the way. It will be interesting to learn if the cuts which some libraries had to make in their appropriations will be continued this year. Libraries have demonstrated beyond disproof that they have played a part in the depression in raising some of the gloom from the minds of the people, and can make reasonable claim to have financial consideration of the fact. Fortunately, in our worst times, the grotesque cutting which public libraries in the United States were called to endure was not suffered here.