BACKGROUND Patient overcrowding and violent assaults by patients are two major problems in psychiatric healthcare. However, evidence of an association between overcrowding and aggressive behaviour among patients is mixed and limited to small-scale studies. AIMS This study examined the association between ward overcrowding and violent physical assaults in acute-care psychiatric in-patient hosp...

OBJECTIVE  To determine which factors influence whether Santa Claus will visit children in hospital on Christmas Day. DESIGN  Retrospective observational study. SETTING  Paediatric wards in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. PARTICIPANTS  186 members of staff who worked on the paediatric wards (n=186) during Christmas 2015. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES  Presence or absence of Sant...

BACKGROUND Hand hygiene is an important and basic practice that should be used by all healthcare staff to protect both themselves and their patients against infection. Unfortunately hand hygiene compliance remains poor. OBJECTIVE To show an improvement in hand hygiene compliance using a multifaceted approach. METHODS This was a quasiexperimental pre-post intervention study design with a num...

This was an eventful year. The death occurred through a motor accident, on 4 April, of the pioneer neurosurgeon, Cecil A Calvert. The Hospital was awaiting the opening of wards 25 and 26 for metabolic and skin diseases and of wards 23 and 24 for gynaecology (thus vacating 17-18, which would become a fracture unit). Continuity of junior staffing was simplified by changing the date of appointment...

The cases tested.?The accompanying table gives the WR positive rate of a certain section, syphilitic suspects, of the civil population of Calcutta. It is by no means the positive rate for the mixed unselected population. The bloods for examination were received from general wards in hospitals and venereal clinics. The general wards predominated before the anti-venereal drive, towards the end of...

This paper reports on a study of experiences of young people aged 14 to 18 years who were nursed on acute adult hospital wards in NHS hospitals in England. In spite of British government guidelines, young people from 14 years of age continue to be admitted to adult wards in the UK. Although much has been written about the transition of the young person to adult services, there is little researc...