This article (a follow on from an article concentrating on Northern Ireland) examines the relationship between percentage bed occupancy (PO), turnover interval (TI) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) rates in the acute beds of specialist English hospital trusts and describes the TI and levels of bed occupancy. The data were collected from publicly available data: MRSA rates ...

BACKGROUND Our aim was to explore the approaches to and the challenges and benefits of implementing Electronic Patient Record systems (EPRs) into NHS acute, mental health and community care hospitals throughout England. METHODS A mixed methods approach was adopted that comprised an online survey (n = 59) and semi-structured telephone interviews (n = 8) with chief information officers (or head...

OBJECTIVES In 1997 a review of paramedic practice upon adult patients in the UK found many inconsistencies and deficiencies in basic care. A follow up review in 2002 identified widespread improvement in provision of equipment and skills to provide basic and advanced life support.Paediatric care was not assessed in either review. The authors conducted this study to identify current standards of ...

Public spending on healthcare has increased significantly over the past five years. One way to assess the benefits of such spending is to look at how well trusts can convert the increased resources into improved healthcare outcomes. This article reviews a number of suggested approaches to measuring performance in the UK’s NHS and provides an illustrative analysis of the efficiency of the so-cal...

Objectives To assess the extent and pattern of implementation of guidance issued by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). Design Interrupted time series analysis, review of case notes, survey, and interviews. Setting Acute and primary care trusts in England and Wales. Participants All primary care prescribing, hospital pharmacies; a random sample of 20 acute trusts, 17 mental h...

OBJECTIVES To describe current use of electronic prescribing (EP) in English acute NHS hospital trusts, and the use of multiple EP systems within the same hospital. DESIGN Descriptive cross-sectional postal survey. SETTING Acute NHS hospital trusts in England. PARTICIPANTS The survey was sent to chief pharmacists in all acute English NHS hospital trusts in 2011. Where trusts comprised mul...

Though research on the Semantic Web has progressed at a steady pace, its promise has yet to be realized. One major difficulty is that, by its very nature, the Semantic Web is a large, uncensored system to which anyone may contribute. This raises the question of how much credence to give each source. We cannot expect each user to know the trustworthiness of each source, nor would we want to assi...