Healthcare: rejection of privatisation and patient fees in Central Europe

Since 2006, there have been successful campaigns against commercialisation of public health services in the four central European countries – Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Debating the division of labour in healthcare in France and England

As Larson (1990) states, professions are historically specific and ‘there is no pattern of social closure around an occupation that is not inflected by the latter’s past, its specific activity and typical context of performance or…the political context in which closure is obtained.’ Larson’s work focuses particularly on the differences between the establishment of professions in France, where there was considerable state intervention, with that in the US and UK, both of which were more market-oriented. This paper is based on data from an evaluation of a large European exchange programme of staff between Kent and Lille, from 2005 to 2008 and discusses the division of labour in healthcare between two occupational groups, medicine and nursing, in England and in France. This division of labour has been extensively discussed in the UK, particularly since from the mid 1990s the nursing role has been extended and innovations such as nurse prescribing have been introduced, whereas such extended roles have not been introduced in France. The paper draws particularly on interview data from mental health practitioners, in which it is argued that whilst the English nurses may on the surface seem to have a wider range of competences and autonomy, in reality they are more constrained, as they operate under protocols and therefore do not exercise professional judgement. Not only do these data illustrate the centrality of professional judgement in discussions about practice, they also demonstrate the circularity of many debates on extended roles.

The exposure to verbal abuse of student nurses gaining placement experience

Clinical placement experience has a key role to play in the socialisation and preparation of future members of the nursing profession. Aggression experienced by healthcare workers is currently receiving considerable attention and student nurses have been identified as a group vulnerable to experiencing workplace abuse (Little 1999). The primary aim of the study is to gain a greater understanding of the nature, severity, frequency and sources of verbal abuse experienced by student nurses in health care settings in the south east of England, using as a definition, “the use of inappropriate words… causing distress” (Department of Health 2003). A convenience sample of 156 third year student nurses of all four branches of one preregistration nursing programme in the south east of England was studied with questionnaires distributed retrospectively; 11 4 student nurses returned the questionnaires equating to a response rate of 73%. Results 46% of respondents reported experiencing verbal abuse, 39% had witnessed other students experiencing verbal abuse and 61% reported that they were aware of other students experiencing verbal abuse. Students reported experiencing threats to kill, racial abuse, sexually orientated verbal abuse and bullying while gaining placement experience. Student nurses are a high risk group for experiencing verbal abuse whilst gaining placement experience.In the literature, mental health and learningdisability settings are viewed as high risk areasfor experiencing aggression (Beech and Leather 2003); this study suggests that student nurses experience verbal abuse in a variety of settings and verbal abuse may be more prevalent on general medical and surgical wards than previously expected.