Primary Care - A position paper for the Professions Allied to Medicine (PDF 839 KB)

A Position Paper for the Professions Allied to Medicine

Cancer Services - A Position Paper for the Professions Allied to Medicine (PDF 175 KB)

A Position Paper for the Professions Allied to Medicine Patients with cancer are living longer due to early diagnosis and better treatment. In recent years there has been increasing attention to issues related to the quality of life of patients with cancer and a recognition of the potential for habilitation and rehabilitation. As a result, PAMs as members of the multi-disciplinary team are now more actively involved with patients diagnosed with cancer during all phases of their disease. Each person’s life possesses a unique blend of psychological, social, economic and physical factors and comprehensive care requires the needs of the whole person to be addressed. This requires patients and carers having timely access to the most appropriate range of professional skills that will allow individual patients and their carers to retain control of their lives and associated circumstances for as long as possible. It also requires professions, in all locations, to work in a collaborative patient centred manner that affords the best outcome for patients. The need has been highlighted for a multi-professional approach to the delivery of cancer services in “Investing for the Future” and “A Framework for the Multi-professional Contribution to Cancer Care in Northern Ireland”. This need has also been highlighted in the PAM Strategy document. åÊ

Report on the Regulation of Practitioners of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Ireland

This report has been written in the context of this interest and in response to a request from the Department of Health and Children. It follows a Forum on regulatory issues that was held at the IPA in June 2001 and attended by many CAM practitioners. The Minister for Health and Children asked the Institute to build on the discussions at the Forum by preparing a report on possible options in the regulation of CAM practitioners in Ireland. The focus of the report is on regulatory and policy issues in general. It is not within the Instituteâ?Ts competence or brief to comment on more specific clinical or technical issues. Download the document here

An evaluation of the inappropriate prescribing in older residents in long term care facilities in the greater Cork and Northern Ireland regions using the STOPP and Beers' criteria.

This work has highlighted a number of areas of prescribing concern, for example, the long term use of both benzodiazepines and hypnotics, in older residents residing in long term care facilities. Each of these individual areas should be further investigated to determine the underlying reason(s) for the prescribing concerns in these areas and strategic methods of addressing and preventing further issues should be developed on a national level.This resource was contributed by The National Documentation Centre on Drug Use.

Essential community medicine

This textbook is a definitive guide to the complete spectrum of community medicine. The basic concepts are set out in a clear readable and concise way. The main types of health data are described, as are the principles of disease prevention and its main strategies.This resource was contributed by The National Documentation Centre on Drug Use.

A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial to Evaluate a Policy of Making Hip Protectors Available to Residents of Nursing Homes

Objectives: to evaluate the effectiveness of a policy of making hip protectors available to residents of nursing homes. Design: a cluster randomised controlled trial of the policy in nursing and residential homes, with the home as the unit of randomisation. Setting: 127 nursing and residential homes in the greater Belfast area of Northern Ireland. Participants: 40 homes in the intervention group (representing 1,366 occupied beds) and 87 homes in the control group (representing 2,751 occupied beds). Interventions: a policy of making hip protectors available free of charge to residents of nursing homes and supporting the implementation process by employing a nurse facilitator to encourage staff in the homes to promote their use, over a 72-week period. Main outcome measures: the rate of hip fractures in intervention and control homes, and the level of adherence to use of hip protectors. Results: there were 85 hip fractures in the intervention homes and 163 in the control homes. The mean fracture rate per 100 residents was 6.22 in the intervention homes and 5.92 in the control homes, giving an adjusted rate ratio for the intervention group compared to the control group of 1.05 (95% CI 0.77, 1.43, P = 0.76). Initial acceptance of the hip protectors was 37.2% (508/1,366) with adherence falling to 19.9% (272/1,366) at 72 weeks.Conclusions: making hip protectors available to residents of nursing and residential homes did not reduce the rate of hip fracture. This research does not support the introduction of a policy of providing hip protectors to residents of nursing homes.

Submission from the Irish Society of Physicians in Geriatric Medicine for the National Dementia strategy

The submission from the Irish Society of Physicians in Geriatric Medicine to the Minister for Health and Children for the National Dementia strategy is available to read here

Commissioning for equity. A briefing on inequalities in access to revascularisation in the NHS and in the independent sector among London residents

This briefing describes inequalities in access to revascularisation using data from both the NHS and the independent sector.

Genitourinary Medicine (GUM)/Sexual Health Clinics in Northern Ireland

This is a map of Genitourinary Medicine (GUM)/Sexual Health services across the five health trust areas. It gives contact details for the GUM/sexual health clinics and opening times.