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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of women’s experiences of living with and surviving HIV/AIDS. We argue that strong conceptualization of this experience will lead to more efficient health care delivery for this growing population, within the general framework of managed care. Our analytical strategy is to integrate the nursing concept of inner strength with ideas from the sociological concept of the existential self. There are numerous definitions of the increasingly popular concept of inner strength in the health care literature, largely developed through the experiences of women living with breast cancer. In general, this concept is useful because it focuses research attention on patients’ experiences and perceptions of illness. Nevertheless, current definitions can be critiqued for their tendency: (1) view inner strength as a thing-like phenomenon, as if it were like a disease, to be measured, treated and supplemented; (2) describe inner strength in overly metaphoric and romanticized terms that do not reflect the everyday life of living with a serious illness; and (3) assume that inner strength is equivalent to doing well. We argue that this concept can be of greater scholarly and clinical use if it is defined as follows: Inner strength refers to the different ways women with serious illnesses experience and, subsequently, talk about the deepest, existential resources available to and used by them to manage severe threats to body and self. We developed this concept through a series of 19 biographical and conversational interviews with women living with HIV/AIDS. Our interviews found that these women describe their experiences in terms of three types of narratives or stories. Faith stories recount the ways reliance upon a higher power (spiritual or religious) provides a sense of inner strength. Character stories recount the ways women experience inner strength as a resource available to them before as well as during their illness. Uncertainty stories recount the ways women perceive their inner strength as problematic. We conclude with specific suggestions for the application of our revised concept of Inner strength to the role of nursing in the delivery of managed care to women living with HIV/AIDS.

The Prime Minister called recently for “a great debate” upon the curriculum and standards in schools, and on how education could best meet the needs of the economy.

I was asked to talk about demographic, social and educational data sources for the management of further and higher education from the perspective of the individual institution and the local authority. My emphasis will be on the production of statistics and the processes by which statistical information is made available, but it would be difficult to think about sources of statistics in this area in isolation from their use and the purpose for which they were collected, so I shall begin with a brief review of the kinds of uses I have in mind.

Many telecare services will in the future rely on service users to subsidise their existence through a charging policy. This will reduce the level of uptake, and hence the economic efficiency, unless services are shown to offer value for money. As part of a wide audit and evaluation of telecare provision in Gwynedd, service users were asked both about the value of the service to them and to their families. The responses showed that the service was perceived to be valuable to the vast majority of services users, but even more so to their families. Most thought that telecare played a valuable role in helping them to maintain their independence. When asked about the financial value of the service, more than half felt that it was worth £4.50 per week or more without a dedicated response team. The majority would not wish to pay extra for a response team.

Telecare services based on sensors that provide an early and identified warning of an emergency in the homes of vulnerable people are being established quickly across the UK. More advanced systems based on lifestyle monitoring (LM) are being proposed that will be both reactive and responsive in nature. They will require the recording of much more data and will involve more system intelligence in order to analyse changes in a dynamic manner. Data will be collected both continuously from a battery of sensors, and intermittently from a variety of sources including monitoring centres and specialist medical devices. Many new applications will be possible ranging from an automatic assessment of risks and needs through to long‐term detection of a decline in well‐being and interventions using reminders and remotely controlled electrical equipment. Most of these applications will not be possible in a reliable manner using simple systems with few sensor inputs and limited or no system intelligence. More sophisticated systems will be capable of measuring subtle changes of relevance to many medical conditions. However, they will require significant attention to issues of ethics, consent, data ownership, storage and access because of their potentially intrusive nature.

July 7, 1969 Revenue — Selective employment tax — Qualifying activities — “Agriculture” — Defined as including “livestock breeding and keeping” — Meaning of “livestock” extended by separate definition of “livestock” — “any creature kept for the production of food, wool, skins or fur, or for the purposes of its use in the farming of land” — Breeding of cats and dogs for sale for research — Whether within extended or general definitions of “agriculture” — Selective Employment Payments Act, 1966 (c. 32), ss. 2(2) (a), (3) (e), 10(1).

Education and the arts The Arts Council has published a consultative document The Arts Council and Education, to clarify both its relationship with the education system and its own educational responsibilities. In shaping policy the Council wants to consider a wide range of ideas and opinions, and is inviting written responses by 30 November. The paper outlines the developments which have taken place since the appointment of an education officer three years ago, and points out that the Council's chartered obligation to make the arts more accessible means more than making then physically available:

Leading aerospace equipment manufacturer Dowty Rotol has received orders from British Aerospace for a further batch of A320 main landing gears which will result in further business worth over $40 million, giving the company an all time record order book.

As the life expectation of the British population increases, so will the need for community care services to minimise the effects of ill‐health and improve the quality of life for older people. The article provide examples of suitable assistive technology and considers how comprehensive services that make use of such technology can be developed and managed.