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Patient-centred care and patient involvement are increasingly central concepts in health policy in the UK and elsewhere. However, there is little consensus regarding their definition or how to achieve “patient-centred” care in everyday practice or how to involve patients in service redesign initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to explore these issues from the perspective of key stakeholders within National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in the UK.

Semi-structured interviews, covering a range of topics related to service redesign, were conducted with 77 key stakeholders across three NHS Trusts in the West Midlands. In total, 20 of these stakeholders were re-interviewed 18 months later. Data were managed and analysed using the Framework Method.

While patient-centred care and patient involvement were regularly cited as important to the stakeholders, a gap persisted between values and reported practice. This gap is explained through close examination of the ways in which the concepts were used by stakeholders, and identifying the way in which they were adapted to fit other organisational priorities. The value placed on positive subjective experience changed to concerns about objective measurement of the patients as they move through the system.

Increased awareness and reflection on the conceptual tensions between objective processes and subjective experiences could highlight reasons why patient-centred values fail to translate into improved practice.

The paper describes and explains a previously unarticulated tension in health organisations between values and practice in patient centred care and patient involvement in service redesign.

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings from an evaluation project conducted to investigate the impact of two staff engagement programmes introduced to four National Health Service (NHS) hospital Trusts in England. It seeks to examine this development in the context of current policy initiatives aimed at increasing the level of staff involvement in decision‐making, and the related literature.

A mixed‐methods approach incorporating document analysis, interviews, a survey and appreciative inquiry, informed by the principles of impact evaluation design, was used.

The main finding to emerge was that leadership was crucial if widespread staff engagement was to be achieved. Indeed, in some of the trusts the staff engagement programmes were seen as mechanisms for developing leadership capability. The programmes had greater impact when they were “championed” by the Chief Executive. Effective communication throughout the organisations was reported to be a prerequisite for staff engagement. Problems were identified at the level of middle management where the lack of confidence in engaging with staff was a barrier to implementation.

The nature of the particular organisational context is crucial to the success of efforts to increase levels of staff engagement. The measures that were found to work in the trusts would need to be adapted and applied to best meet the needs of other organisations.

Many health care organisations in England will need to harness the efforts of their workforce if they are to meet the significant challenges of dealing with financial restraint and increasing patient demand. This paper provides some insights on how this can be done.

Highlights the lack of comprehensive collections of Hispanic materials in the USA. Discusses how and why this situation should be remedied. Suggests suitable bibliographies as a starting point for collection building. Describes the assessment of a Hispanic American collection at the University of California, Irvine.

In this chapter, the authors explore the impact of Covid-19 on craft beer in the here-and-now of the pandemic by examining responses of Scottish (UK) brewers to it. The authors’ aim is to organise their responses to the situation in which they find themselves with the objective of making fresh sense of the dynamics of organising during a global pandemic. In pursuit of fresh insight to all of this, the authors seek to illuminate what Covid-19 can do to/for breweries and to know the world differently (through recognising more than one way of knowing). So, to enrich the reader’s understanding of organising in the haecceity of responding to and dealing with Covid-19, the authors’ method of inquiry involves integrating empirical materials from brewery social media activities with poetic transcription from interviews with brewers. The authors find support for the view that such integration of findings through research poetry clothes the social media content findings and neither approach dominates the other. Potential implications for future beer studies from the field of poetry are discussed in light of the new comings-together in this chapter.

This paper aims to explore inpatient staff experiences of seeking to meet the religious and cultural needs of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) inpatients on mental health wards.

Nine semi-structured interviews were undertaken with inpatient staff in one NHS Trust in England to explore their views and experiences of supporting BAME inpatients to meet their religious and cultural needs. Anonymised transcripts were analysed thematically.

Inpatient staff reported lacking the confidence and knowledge to identify and meet BAME inpatients’ religious and cultural needs, especially inpatients from smaller ethnic groups and newly emerging communities. There was no specific assessment used to identify religious and cultural needs and not all inpatient staff received training on meeting these needs. Concerns were raised about difficulties for staff in differentiating whether unusual beliefs and practices were expressions of religiosity or delusions. Staff identified the potential role of inpatients’ family members in identifying and meeting needs, explaining religious and cultural beliefs and practices, and psychoeducation to encourage treatment or medication adherence.

Potential ways to address this gap in the knowledge and confidence of inpatient staff to meet the religious and cultural needs of BAME patients include training for inpatient staff; the production and updating of a directory of common religious and cultural practices and needs; local resources which can help to support those needs; and religious and cultural practices and needs being documented by mental health practitioners in community teams such that this information is readily available for inpatient staff if a service user is admitted.

This is the first study to consider inpatient staff views on meeting the religious and cultural needs of BAME informal patients and patients detained under the Mental Health Act 1983.

Purpose: The present chapter includes discussing the effects of COVID-19 in the tourism industry. Although much has been written on COVID-19 in these days, literature emphasizes on the economic devastating consequences of lockdown on tourism industry. The chapter goes in an opposite direction revealing the fears, expectance, and hopes of tourism staff in Argentina.

Design-Methodology: Because of the methodological impossibilities to conduct face-to-face interviews, we have employed digital platform to conduct 50 interviews in tourism professionals geographically located in different Argentinean cities as well as coming from different subsectors in the tourism industry. The used method was snowball which means that each interviewee recommended another one once the interview ends. The sample was drawn in 20 females and 30 males from 25 to 55 years old.

Findings: The findings suggest three important assumptions. Interviewees expressed some partisan or ideological hostilities against China and Eastern countries. The Chinese tourists were seen with some mistrust for interviewed people as well as the reaction of Chinese government to stop the pandemic. In other cases, old inter-class rivalries were found when interviewees blamed the stranded (rich) tourists as the main carriers of the virus in Argentina-wide. Hostilities and chauvinist expression against neighboring countries such Bolivia or Chile were overtly uttered. These narratives escalate when interviewees manifest their wages have been unilaterally slumped down. By the side, digital technologies offer as fertile ground to exploit new forms of tourism in the years to come.

Research Limitations: The obtained outcome should be validated in next approaches because the sample is not statistically representative of the universe. The restrictions imposed by the lockdown impeded further research today. In the same line, the sample was limited to tourism professionals, which suggests that policymakers should be included in the future research.

Practical Implications: Understanding the fears and hope of tourism staff is an alternative way to enact sustainable policies to mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic in the tourism industry. While these policies construct a bridge between theory and management, no less true is that the future of tourism remains uncertain.

Originality Value: The present chapter provides an original empirical insight into the viewpoint of tourism staff, which is today subject to countless fears and deprivations. The extensive lockdown imposed by Argentinean government, accompanied by the impossibility to orchestrate a preparedness program of mitigation, has led the industry to a slow agony. The chapter reflects the rise of an anti-foreign discourse and sentiment oriented to demonize not only the Chinese (Asian) tourists but also expatriates living abroad. This anti-tourist discourse, which oppose to the neologism offered by Urry as the “tourist-gaze,” univocally exhibits the start of a radicalized hospitality we dubbed as “the wicked-gaze.” The “Other” is not an object of curiosity any longer, but “a potential enemy” to be controlled.

Biosolids, the residual solids from wastewater treatment operations and once considered a waste product by the industry, are now becoming increasingly recognised as a multifunctional resource with growing opportunities for marketable use. This shift in attitude towards biosolids management is spurred on by increasing volatility in energy, fertilizer and commodity markets as well as moves by the global community towards mitigating global warming and the effects of climate change. This chapter will provide an overview of current global biosolids practices (paired with a number of Australian examples) as well as discuss potential future uses of biosolids. Additionally, present and future risks and opportunities of biosolids use are highlighted, including potential policy implications.

This chapter examines the (in)visibility and symbolism of women in sports governance on the island of Ireland, taking as its main empirical focus available data on the boards of government-funded national governing bodies, north and south. The distinctiveness of the Irish case is explained by three factors: the governance minefield, itself a legacy of Irish-British relations and partition in the 1920s, recognisable patterns in gender relations north and south and the functioning of sport as a safe, largely unquestioned and intriguingly vague symbolism for inclusion and peace in Northern Ireland. These conditions have resonance today, not only for women in sport and the approach to quotas, for instance, but that also play out in the delivery of Brexit and the struggles that characterise Irish-British relations more generally. The chapter concludes with a consideration of future challenges and areas for further research.

This study explored one form of remote working – work from home – to understand the impact of work disruptions on workers and human resource management (HRM) practice and therefore how to adapt to future crises. Specifically, the purpose is to understand the impact of events on employees when they are forced to move back and forth (yo-yoing) between work from home and a central office, using the case of Perth, Western Australia (WA).

Thirty-nine interviews with leaders, managers and co-workers working in private and public organisations suggest that forced changes to work arrangements affect job content and demands, well-being and potentially career trajectories.

The authors critically applied and developed the tenets of event system theory (EST) (novelty, disruption and criticality) by analysing an ongoing or “long” event rather than a discrete or time-limited one. The study found that the work-from-home experience influenced the individual perception of whether remote working would suit employees in the future, potentially influencing career paths. In addition, the selection of locations to live, preferred properties (e.g. home office space) and access to services (e.g. broadband infrastructure) has also become dominant features of work decisions.

While the study generated rich data, it is not without limitations. The participants were from one Australian state which may not reflect the COVID-19 experiences of other jurisdictions. In addition, the participants were mostly female so this may offer a different perspective than a more gender-balanced sample. The study was limited to the perspectives of employees and middle managers.

The authors note three areas of implications for practitioners. First, the findings suggest that strong organisational and HRM support assists employees to cope well with change. Second, the importance of technological and social preparedness in improving employee experiences highlights the role of HRM in job design. Third, it is key that salient events are recognised as potential determinants of career pathways.

The evidence from this research broadens the application of EST showing that forced flexibility has an influence on work arrangements by influencing a series of changes in features of work and experiences of employees. As such, this impacts employee's well-being and potentially future career decisions.

Here is the long‐awaited fourth edition of Ralph De Sola's classic Abbreviations Dictionary. This updated edition of a work first published in 1958 is the largest, most complete compilation of its kind — a reference book far surpassing all others in the field. Mr. De Sola has expanded his work to include more than 130,000 definitions and entries — over 77,000 definitions, over 54,000 entries. The current edition offers abbreviations, acronyms, anonyms, contradictions, initials and nicknames, short forms and slang shortcuts, and signs and symbols covering disciplines which range from the arts to the advanced sciences and embrace all areas of human knowledge and activity.