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Early access to senior decision makers and investigations has improved outcomes for many conditions. A surgical clinical decisions unit (CDU) was created to allow rapid assessment and investigation by on-call senior surgical team members to facilitate decision making and, if appropriate, discharge within a set time frame (less than four hours). The purpose of this paper is to compare outcomes for unscheduled general surgery admissions to the hospital before and after commissioning this unit.

Prospectively collected hospital episode statistics data were compared for all general surgical admissions for one year prior to (July 2010-June 2011) and two years after (July 2011-June 2013) the introduction of the CDU. Statistical analysis using the Mann Whitney U-test was performed.

More patients were discharged within 24 hours (12 per cent vs 20 per cent, p < 0.001) and total hospital stay decreased (4.6 days vs 3.2 days, p < 0.001) following introduction of CDU. Admission via A & E (273 vs 212, p < 0.01) was also decreased. Overall there was a 25.3 per cent reduction in emergency surgical admissions. No difference was noted in 30-day readmission rates (47 vs 49, p=0.29).

The introduction of a CDU in has increased early discharge rates and facilitated safe early discharge, reducing overall hospital stay for unscheduled general surgical admissions. This has decreased fixed bed costs and improved patient flow by decreasing surgical care episodes routed through the emergency department (ED). In all, 30-day readmission rates have not been influenced by shorter hospital stay. Service redesign involving early senior decision making and patient investigation increases efficiency and patient satisfaction within unscheduled general surgical care. Not original but significant in that the model has not been widely implemented and this is a useful addition to the literature.

The journey to find the right vehicle for delivering learning disability services is set in the context of foundation trust and social enterprise options being introduced into the wider NHS. The Ridgeway Partnership shares the challenges it is facing as an integrated service that is caught in the middle of these options.

This paper aims to consider whether ethical persuasion can be part of public relations practice.

The paper contends that the critical issue for practitioners is not whether they engage in persuasion, but whether they do so ethically. Accordingly, a definition of ethical persuasion is derived by examining unethical propaganda. The paper then considers what standard might be used to assess the ethics of persuasion. The notion of “the public interest” – ubiquitously linked to ethical practice in public relations – is considered but found to be too elusive to guide the practice individual practitioners. Other more assessable standards are identified, as is a guiding approach to ethics. The approach to ethics adopted in this paper is rule utilitarianism. The methodology of this paper is deductive and derivative analysis, argument and synthesis, drawn from a broad body of literature.

Persuasion can be ethical, and a definition of ethical persuasion is proffered. The public interest is not a standard that individual practitioners can determine, decide, know, or apply to assess the ethics of their practice. Ethical persuasion can, however, be assessed using other standards, discussed in the paper. Consequently, a set of criteria and standards to practicing ethical persuasion is developed.

The paper does not extend into a discussion of practical persuasive techniques. Therefore, an extension of this examination could consider a thorough assessment of the ethics of practical persuasive communication techniques.

Directly relevant to the daily work of public relations practitioners, communicators, adertisers and marketers, who are interested in acting ethically. The paper provide a basis for a guide to assessing the ethics of persuasive practice.

This paper confronts both the question of whether practitioners can use the notion of the public interest to assess the ethics of practice, and also what constitutes ethical (and unethical) persuasion, and considers how persuation can be used ethically.

This study aims to identify intra-organisational drivers that enhance the implementation of a purchasing social responsibility (PSR) approach and drivers that influence PSR throughout the phases of the process.

The conceptual framework presents PSR as a process, rather than merely a decision. It focuses on three dimensions (centralisation, specialisation and formalisation) to highlight the role and evolution of key drivers through a three-phase process (set-up, operating and sustaining). The empirical analysis is based on a single qualitative case study of Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF), France’s state-owned railway company, which is particularly advanced in its PSR-related practices.

The intra-organisational drivers differ according to the phase of the PSR process. Transitions across the three phases entail organisational adaptation, which require the company to transform from a mechanistic to an organic structure.

This research contributes to a better understanding of the PSR implementation process through an in-depth study focused on intra-organisational drivers. Although relatively understudied, these drivers play important roles.

This study identifies operational, intra-organisational leverage actions that can benefit firms that aim to adopt or maintain a PSR approach. It also provides comprehensive guidance for activating these leverages throughout the PSR implementation process, and it helps firms identify their level of PSR.

This study proposes the first processual, organisational interpretation of PSR approaches.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to emerging theory about the role of authenticity in social media use through discussion of a not‐for‐profit organisation's experiences of using social networking to communicate with potential stakeholders during a recruitment campaign.

The paper uses critical discourse analysis of semi‐structured interviews with organisational spokespersons to examine the use of social media by this not‐for‐profit organisation.

The organisation attempted to re‐position its identity to appear “authentic” to potential young stakeholders, and to use social media to build a dialogue that would attract new recruits to the industry. The paper discusses the challenges and opportunities experienced by the not‐for‐profit organisation in this recruitment campaign.

Organisations contemplating the use of social networking sites to engage new audiences can reflect on the problems encountered in the implementation of this campaign, and plan to avoid similar pitfalls.

The study presents original empirical data in relation to social networking by a not‐for‐profit organisation. It demonstrates the importance of audience perceptions of authenticity and raises important questions about organisational “control”, and the expectations of employees carrying out “authenticity work”.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors perceived to be associated with the design and delivery of an effective Olympic Games preparation camp.

To identify and explore such factors, interviews were conducted with eight members of a preparation camp delivery team for the London 2012 Olympic Games, and with two athletes who had participated in Olympic preparation camps.

The results identified four overarching factors that should be considered when designing and delivering an effective Olympic preparation camp: planning, operations, environment, and the delivery team. To illustrate the interrelationships between these factors and situate them within the holistic preparation camp context, an operational model was developed. This model also portrays the chronological ordering of events, individuals involved at each stage, and athlete-centered nature of an Olympic preparation camp.

Despite the significant amount of Olympic-related research at organizational, environmental, and individual levels, no research to date has holistically examined Olympic preparation camps per se. This study provides the first insight into the factors associated with the design and delivery of an effective Olympic preparation camp, and potential interrelationships between these factors.

OUR readers begin this month a year which we hope has many library possibilities. The growing recognition of libraries and of the calling of the librarian gives one reason to believe that progress will continue, gradually it is true, but surely, towards a fairer and more generous library policy than has been possible in the past. Vestiges of worn ideas Still remain, as when we hear that a library has mutilated its newspapers deliberately in the belief that this would in some way suppress the betting habit. There are libraries, too, in some towns, even in some universities—incredible as that may seem to those who do not know them—where librarianship is so bad that its natural recognition is pity or contempt. And it is curiously the nature of things that people who know bad libraries accept them as bad and do not attempt righteous criticism. But such ideas and such libraries grow fewer every year. We begin 1930 with new and high hopes.

Research ethics committees (RECs) and ethical standards govern research. To conduct research involving participants, researchers must first gain a favourable opinion on their protocol from a REC. This paper aims to promote researcher reflexivity and openness about applying agreed ethical protocols in practice.

Using examples from qualitative fieldwork in two care home studies, the authors critically reflect on the issues encountered when applying ethics committee agreed protocols in real-world situations.

Three areas of research practice are reflected on given as follows: recruitment and consent; approach to observations; and research processes, shared spaces and access to data. The interface between researcher and participant did not always mirror textbook scenarios. Ultimately, this left researchers accountable for taking ethically acceptable actions while conducting research.

Drawing on research experiences in care homes, the authors consider the reliance on the researcher to be authentic and morally driven over and above formal ethical approvals. The authors conclude that the researcher is the bridging agent between ethical protocols and ethical practice in the field. As such, researchers need to be open and reflexive about their practices in fieldwork.

This review arises from a series of multidisciplinary Franco‐British workshops which were supported by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR). More than 30 participants from a range of institutions and agencies were involved in compiling the material in this review (Appendix I). The workshops offered an opportunity to exchange ideas from research on the relationships between migration, health and well‐being in Britain and France. In the following discussion we compare and contrast experiences in the two countries, with the aim of assessing the importance of international, national and local contexts, in their various cultural, social and political dimensions, for the relationships of interest. Drawing on these ideas, we suggest the definition of a future international research agenda.