BACKGROUND The health visitors' role in many countries is changing. In Scotland, the role has undergone substantial changes through the introduction of an enhanced health visiting programme, which includes increased, structured home visits. This evaluation was conducted within NHS Ayrshire and Arran, one of the 14 Scottish Health Boards. Our aim was to understand and explain how, and why, the p...

OBJECTIVE To explain the reasons for geographical variation in the use of coronary revascularisation in the United Kingdom. DESIGN This was a cross sectional ecological study. SETTING NHS and independent hospitals performing coronary revascularisation for the 11.6 million residents of the south east Thames, East Anglian and north western health regions in England plus Greater Glasgow, Lanar...

BACKGROUND Campylobacteriosis is the leading cause of bacterial gastroenteritis in most developed countries. People are exposed to infection from contaminated food and environmental sources. However, the translation of these exposures into infection in the human population remains incompletely understood. This relationship is further complicated by differences in the presentation of cases, thei...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate longitudinally the effectiveness of a cooking programme on self-reported confidence about cooking skills and food consumption patterns in parents of young children. DESIGN An evaluation of cooking programmes delivered by National Health Service (NHS) community food workers using a single group pre-test/post-test repeated measures design. A shortened version of a validate...

OBJECTIVES We investigated the treatment effects reported from a high-quality randomized controlled trial of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for 106 people with borderline personality disorder attending community-based clinics in the UK National Health Service - the BOSCOT trial. Specifically, we examined whether the amount of therapy and therapist competence had an impact on our primary ou...

BACKGROUND Protected learning time (PLT) has spread quickly to primary healthcare teams in Scotland. Previous research has shown that PLT is generally well received, but that different professional and occupational groups have differing perceptions and experiences of PLT. Community nurses have low rates of attendance at practice-based PLT in NHS Ayrshire and Arran. It is not known why. AIMS T...