Formal and informal care utilisation amongst elderly persons with visual impairment.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the determinants of formal and informal care utilisation amongst persons with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). DESIGN: Cross-sectional hospital-based study. SETTING: Hospital eye clinic in Northern Ireland. PARTICIPANTS: 284 persons aged >or=50 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Participants were questioned about their care, living arrangements, eyesight-related ability to self-care, and eyesight-related need to be more careful whilst undertaking everyday tasks. RESULTS: The percentage of older persons receiving formal and informal care rose with the level of visual impairment. 34.9% and 37.3% of those with no visual impairment received formal and informal care, respectively, compared with 51.6% and 69.9% of those with moderate visual impairment and 55.6% and 88.9% of those with severe visual impairment. Three factors (age, best corrected distance visual acuity in the better eye and living alone) were significant predictors (p

Improving the utilisation of University teaching space

There is a perception that teaching space in universities is a rather scarce resource. However, some studies have revealed that in many institutions it is actually chronically under-used. Often, rooms are occupied only half the time, and even when in use they are often only half full. This is usually measured by the “utilisation” which is basically the percentage of available ’seat-hours’ that are employed. In real institutions, this utilisation can often takes values as low as 20-40%. One consequence of such low utilisation is that space managers are under pressure to make a more efficient use of the available teaching space. However, better management is hampered because there does not appear to be a good understanding within space management (near-term planning) of why this happens. Nor, a good basis within space planning (long-term planning) of how best to accommodate the expected low utilisations. This motivates our two main goals: (i) To understand the factors that drive down utilisations, (ii) To set up methods to provide better space planning. Here, we provide quantitative evidence that constraints arising from timetabling and location requirements easily have the potential to explain the low utilisations seen in reality. Furthermore, on considering the decision question “Can this given set of courses all be allocated in the available teaching space?” we find that the answer depends on the associated utilisation in a way that exhibits threshold behaviour: There is a sharp division between regions in which the answer is “almost always yes” and those of “almost always no”. Our work suggests that progress in space management and planning will arise from an integrated approach; combining purely space issues with restrictions representing an aggregated or abstracted version of key constraints such as timetabling or location, and

Safeguarding and promoting children in maternity services- implications for policy and practice

The article debates the issues involved in safeguarding and protecting children in maternity services and offers implications for professional practice. Midwives and other staff who work as members of the maternity team have a safeguarding role to play in the identification of babies and children who have been abused, or at risk of abuse, and in subsequent intervention and protection services. The study highlights how domestic violence increases during pregnancy and the postpartum period, and is significantly related to all types of child maltreatment up to the child's fifth year, and children under one being at the highest risk of injury, or death. Close inter-agency liaison is required with midwives who are accountable and not afraid to challeneg hiostorical working practices.