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Demonstrates that the quality assurance systems and audit techniques presently being applied throughout the NHS have displaced or succeeded the original goals of the service while increasing its bureaucracy and costs.

In January 1989 a working group, made up of college and service staff, was formed with the remit of devising a method of assessing the suitability of a clinical area for student nurses to learn the practice of nursing. The group interpreted the remit as the identification of the quality of the learning environment offered by clinical areas. Other UK nursing colleges had devised methods of assessing the quality of learning environments but the working group felt that those studied were too subjective. The group felt that responses to quality matters which were in the form of statements were too difficult to compare and therefore to use as standard‐setting tools. By means of questionnaires, grading forms and direct observation numerical scores were applied to each factor, giving the possibility of setting numerical standards. A pilot study was undertaken which showed the method to be a feasible approach to measuring quality, although some of the measuring methods used require to be refined and the pilot repeated several times to give values to the figures attained.

Managers today, in looking for ways to manage their staff effectively and to increase productivity, too often turn to the latest “management tool” or technique as the panacea to all their manpower problems. Attracted by glossy promises or presentations, these are introduced, generally from the top, without reference to the ever‐growing research evidence. Reviews some of the research into the use of goals in organizations. Concludes that there is research evidence to show that staff at all levels involved in setting their own goals will increase their production, quality and motivation, but that the setting of goals does not require a complex and costly process. The use of any goal is better than no goal but outcomes are better in simple participative systems.

Defined as perceiving the past via the lens of former peoples, historical empathy engenders rich cognitive and affective understandings. Drawing on Ricoeur's hermeneutics (1981, 2004), this paper departs from previous work on historical empathy by conceiving empathy as dialogically mediated by sociocultural and narrative perceptions.

This hermeneutic phenomenology explores eight adolescents' engagements with primary sources from the Second World War.

This study reveals the power of empathy to draw the students into the past and to investigate sources. Alternately, the students struggled with fanciful elaborations and overidentifications with historical figures.

Cultivating wise judgments begins with accepting the inherent link between students' historicity and historical empathy and then teaching students to wisely interpret.

This study broadens historical empathy's framework to include Ricoeur's hermeneutic philosophies of narrative and history.

Addresses the problem of psychotherapy coming to understand itself formally as a conversation in which healing of distortions and breakdowns in communication occurs. The paper proposes making concepts the basis for the psychotherapy conversation by linking psychotherapy to second‐order cybernetics and utilizing Pask’s conversation theory. The first part describes cybernetics as the context for the study of the distortions and breakdowns in communication. The second part discusses conversation theory as a formal description of the procedures of psychotherapy, as a way to converse in psychotherapy, as a way to talk about psychotherapy and as a way to change the conversation of psychotherapy. The final part discusses four distinctive characteristics of the evolving conversation of psychotherapy where psychotherapy composes itself as a conversation. These characteristics are what psychotherapy is (its definition), what it is about (its object), how it proceeds (its methods), and what it is for (its value).

In a previous article we have called attention to the danger of eating tinned and bottled vegetables which have been coloured by the addition of salts of copper and we have urged upon the public that no such preparations should be purchased without an adequate guarantee that they are free from copper compounds. Copper poisoning, however, is not the only danger to which consumers of preserved foods are liable. Judging from the reports of cases of irritant poisoning which appear with somewhat alarming frequency in the daily press, and from the information which we have been at pains to obtain, there can be no question that the occurrence of a large number of these cases is to be attributed to the ingestion of tinned foods which has been improperly prepared or kept. It is not to be supposed that the numerous cases of illness which have been ascribed to the use of tinned foods were all cases of metallic poisoning brought about by the action of the contents of the tins upon the metal and solder of the latter. The evidence available does not show that a majority of the cases could be put down to this cause alone; but it must be admitted that the evidence is in most instances of an unsatisfactory and inconclusive character. It has become a somewhat too common custom to put forward the view that so‐called “ptomaine” poisoning is the cause of the mischief; and this upon very insufficient evidence. While there is no doubt that the presence in tinned goods of some poisonous products of decomposition or organic change very frequently gives rise to dangerous illness, so little is known of the chemical nature and of the physiological effects of “ptomaines” that to obtain conclusive evidence is in all cases most difficult, and in many, if not in most, quite impossible. A study of the subject leads to the conclusion that both ptomaine poisoning and metallic poisoning—also of an obscure kind—have, either separately or in conjunction, produced the effects from time to time reported. In view of the many outbreaks of illness, and especially, of course, of the deaths which have been attributed to the eating of bad tinned foods it is of the utmost importance that some more stringent control than that which can be said to exist at present should be exercised over the preparation and sale of tinned goods. In Holland some two or three years ago, in consequence partly of the fact that, after eating tinned food, about seventy soldiers were attacked by severe illness at the Dutch manœuvres, the attention of the Government was drawn to the matter by Drs. VAN HAMEL ROOS and HARMENS, who advocated the use of enamel for coating tins. It appears that an enamel of special manufacture is now extensively used in Holland by the manfacturers of the better qualities of tinned food, and that the use of such enamelled tins is insisted upon for naval and military stores. This is a course which might with great advantage be followed in this country. While absolute safety may not be attainable, adequate steps should be taken to prevent the use of damaged, inferior or improper materials, to enforce cleanliness, and to ensure the adoption of some better system of canning.

This study aims to point out and try to describe the (missing) link between “responsible practises” (e.g. CSR – corporate social responsibility) and social ontology. This critical gap in the literature may conceivably be a stumbling block to responsible business/political/societal action and its theoretical/empirical understanding and effectiveness; therefore, we can legitimately ask ourselves whether a social ontology-focused approach can be considered relevant to this field of study.

As the role of social ontology has presumably been under-explored despite its foundational importance, a set of germane and adjoining themes has been identified, which can be possibly included in future research projects. An overview of relevant literature is provided, and further analysis and desk research can be drawn from the key notions identified.

It is argued that social ontology – especially the underlying debate in terms of shared agency, collective responsibility and collective intentionality – can be an innovative and promising perspective within business ethics studies. Potentially, CSR management and/or similar responsible practices can re-appraised in similar terms.

This study specifically focuses on some selected key aspects related to the ontological status of social collectives (e.g. groups and organisations), trying to recall the main trajectories/directions of the relevant arguments and debates. More empirical research/pilot case studies validating the approach presented here will be required.

Building on the findings of this study, new emergent research methodologies/theoretical tools will make it possible to explore not so much the ways “responsible” practises are defined (indeed, there seems to be a broad consensus about it), but rather how they are socially constructed, implemented and carried out.

This theoretical work can potentially facilitate a comprehensive inter-/multi-/pluri-disciplinary understanding of the novel links explored, namely, between responsibility, social ontology and the underlying longstanding philosophical issues.

The novel thematic approach outlined in this study can challenge and widen the mainstream approaches about CSR management, e.g. stakeholder management and engagement, social accounting and reporting, SRI (socially responsible investment).

THERE is a danger in reviewing developments in the reprographic field that one will merely degenerate into giving a catalogue of the recent hardware. Yet the hardware is important. One is reminded of Verner W. Clapp's remark regarding the effectiveness of the American Council on Library Resources that at the end of 11 years, $10 million and 413 grants, contracts and projects, the work of the Council on Library Resources had brought about a great many improvements but that, on the whole, the state of the art was just about where it was when they started!.

ALL the auguries for the Bournemouth Conference appear to be good. Our local secretary, Mr. Charles Riddle, seems to have spared neither energy nor ability to render our second visit to the town, whose libraries he initiated and has controlled for thirty‐seven years, useful and enjoyable. There will not be quite so many social events as usual, but that is appropriate in the national circumstances. There will be enough of all sorts of meetings to supply what the President of the A.L.A. describes as “the calling which collects and organizes books and other printed matter for the use and benefit of mankind and which brings together the reader and the printed word in a vital relationship.” We hope the discussions will be thorough, but without those long auto‐biographical speeches which are meant for home newspapers, that readers will make time for seeing the exhibitions, and that Bournemouth will be a source of health and pleasure to all our readers who can be there.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal insights into the relationship between migrant communities and the hospitality industry by examining the case study of Irish migrants into nineteenth century Victoria in Australia.

The paper provides examples of the pattern of engagement with the hospitality industry as well as individual and family stories that highlight how hotel‐keeping and the service of alcohol in Melbourne and regional Victoria in the mid‐to‐late 1800s, was a key element in social improvement and mobility of Irish migrants at that time.

Although the relationship between the English and the Irish in the nineteenth century could be classified as difficult, the tensions that characterised Anglo‐Irish relations in a European context were remarkably absent in colonial Australia. This paper describes how conditions in the colonies when the majority of Irish migrants arrived allowed them to use the hospitality industry to improve their social standing and to consolidate their position in Australian society.

Migration presents an interesting interface between host communities and guest migrants, which go to the heart of hospitality. In addition, this case study suggests there are some interesting avenues to be followed by exploring cases of other migrant communities both in their relationships with hosts, but also in the opportunities offered by the hospitality industry for opportunities denied to migrants in wider community.

The opportunities offered to migrants in the hospitality industry can provide a useful means of engagement for migrants into host communities through employment, and more importantly through the cultural interface allowed through hospitality enterprises whereby the migrant as guest acts as host to host community members in hospitality entrepreneurship.

The paper has value to both practitioners and academics because it provides an example of migrant experiences and the opportunities presented by the hospitality industry for employment, entrepreneurship and ultimately community integration.