Staff views

Background: Respite care has traditionally been conceptualised as a short residential break which allows families a break from caring responsibilities. In recent years, alternative respite services have been developed which promote greater social integration and normalisation for people with intellectual and other disabilities.

OBJECTIVES: To put into practice and to evaluate an initial dissemination programme for the Strategies for Relatives (START), a clinically and cost-effective manualised intervention for family carers of people with dementia. SETTING: We offered three-hour 'train-the-trainer' sessions through the British Psychological Society and Dementia UK. PARTICIPANTS: Clinical psychologists and admiral nurses across the UK. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: After the training session, attendees completed an evaluation.

Background: The end of life may be a time of high service utilisation for older adults. Transitions between care settings occur frequently, but may produce little improvement in symptom control or quality of life for patients. Ensuring that patients experience co-ordinated care, and moves occur because of individual needs rather than system imperatives, is crucial to patients’ well-being and to containing health-care costs.

This paper reports on a qualitative study analyzing service-user (SU) and carer perspectives on medication compliance and their experience of compulsory treatment. Eleven SUs and eight carers were interviewed. The research is set against the background of changes to mental health legislation in England, in the form of Supervised Community Treatment. This signals a change in community mental health practice and urges a reconsideration of concepts such as compliance, concordance and coercion.

Introduction: Complex older adults, such as those with hip fracture, frequently require care from multiple professionals across a variety of settings. Integrated care both between providers and across settings is important to ensure care quality and patient safety. The purpose of this study was to determine the core factors related to poorly integrated care when hip fracture patients transition between care settings.