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There is little evidence that treatment advances have improved the prognosis of heart failure in the community. One explanation is the failure of doctors to undertake necessary prescribing. Reports elsewhere how a modified Delphi approach, based on the RAND Health Services utilisation study method, was used to produce audit criteria for necessary prescribing for systolic heart failure in New Zealand (NZ) general practice. Reports experience of applying these criteria in late 1999 to the medical notes of a random sample of 70 patients with heart failure, as defined by a recorded diagnosis in 30 practices in central Auckland, NZ. Use of the audit criteria was feasible and appears valid, although the methods used to apply them need to be simplified to be of use as a practical means of promoting clinical governance. The small patient sample demands caution in interpreting the results. However, uncommon yet plausible findings, such as the high frequency of ACE inhibitor prescribing for heart failure, deserve further investigation.

Fear is seldom reported in the research literature on barriers to accessing general practitioner (GP) care. One reason may be that some patients are unwilling to admit to fear of this care. This is especially so for patients who, for social, cultural and historical reasons, have a poor sense of self, or do not wish to challenge professionals, or both. In New Zealand, the Maori and Pacific peoples are disproportionately characteristic of these patients and have poor access to GP care, including asthma in children. This paper contributes to the literature on using key informants to interpret another group’s needs, and integrates and adds to known patient attitudes that can hinder access to GP services.

This article surveys the literature dealing with theory and applications of life cycle costing (LCC). It deals with the literature published in the last 25 years and provides 667 references.

WE tell our students to concentrate on policy rather than practice, and this I propose to do here. But I am sure that librarians are interested in the way in which our policy is implemented, so there will be some account of our selection procedures. Some questions of principle will be examined as they arise from the facts given; others will be left to later sections of this paper.

The aim of this review is to explore recent literature regarding the development of fall detector technology as part of a service evaluation on the use of fall detectors across the region funded by NHS West Midlands. It also aims to explore the application and the use of products designed to detect falls and alert for help from end‐user and health and social care staff perspectives.

A comprehensive review of the literature of the last ten years was conducted, search terms were used to identify relevant literature from research databases and the main themes from the literature were summarised. This work was carried out to inform a service evaluation of the use of fall detectors across the West Midlands region and was funded by NHS West Midlands.

It was found that whilst there are a wide variety of new technologies regarding fall detectors in development, the range of technologies currently available through health and social services to users are limited. Health and social care staff appear to be less convinced of the benefits of fall detectors than end‐users. There was also a lack of robust evidence regarding different approaches to technology in the management and detection of falls. Users had mixed views regarding the use of fall detectors, with some people having concerns about privacy, lack of human contact, user‐friendliness and appropriate training, whilst others clearly identified the benefits of detecting falls and raising an alert. The implications of these findings for practice are discussed.

This paper will be of value to those working in falls services, telecare or industry partners developing fall detector technology.