The current economic climate makes it increasingly likely that the role of nurses in the operating theatre will be scrutinised once again. This article reports on how theatre nurses view their work, making some recommendations to try to improve the perception of theatre nursing outside operating departments.

This article presents the Life Drama project as a case study in how theoretical and contextual factors may inform the development of an applied theatre initiative. Life Drama is a workshopbased, participatory form of applied theatre and performance being developed in Papua New Guinea. At this time, the aim of Life Drama is to address the gap between ‘awareness’ and behaviour change in relation ...

This paper extends the connection between computers and theatre, first explored by Brenda Laurel in her research into human-computer interface. Applying a similar approach to the study of telepresence can present new perspectives and yield an interesting insight into the causes, effects and structure of telepresence. Working within a phenomenological tradition, the author establishes some point...

Conventional loose-weave cotton operating garments were compared with clothing of a non-woven fabric to test their efficacy in reducing the dispersal of skin bacteria into theatre air. When men wore operating suits made of the non-woven fabric dispersal of skin bacteria was reduced by 72%. When all the operating-theatre staff wore suits and dresses of this fabric air bacterial counts during ope...

The NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement has determined that a £7 million saving can be achieved per trust by improving theatre efficiency. The aim of this quality improvement project was to improve orthopaedic theatre turnaround without compromising the patient safety. We process mapped all the stages from application of dressing to knife to skin on the next patient in order to identif...

The Royal United Hospital, Bath, admits approximately 550 patients with neck of femur fractures per year. The risks from returning to theatre for this patient group are often life-threatening. Post-operative wound ooze was noted to cause a significant rate of return to theatre, with increased lengths of stay and patient morbidity. A wound closure protocol was agreed by the consultant body. This...