BACKGROUND Despite the need for a reduction in levels of childhood exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) being a recognised public health goal, the delivery of ETS preventive care in child health service settings remains a largely unstudied area. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of ETS preventive care in child health services; differences in the provision of car...

In the first decade of this new millennium, health professionals are faced with a rapidly increasing need for child mental health services and changing models of service provision. This gives us a unique opportunity to make provision for services where it has not been available before, or to improve upon the existing services. This paper examines the challenges and opportunities while attemptin...

The need to take account of spirituality in research and health services provision is assuming ever greater importance. However the field has long been hampered by a lack of conceptual clarity about the nature of spirituality itself. We do not agree with the sceptical claim that it is impossible to conceptualize spirituality within a scientific paradigm. Our aims are to 1) provide a brief over-...

Objectives To identify whether psychiatric disturbance in parentally bereaved children and surviving parents is related to service provision. Design Prospective case-control study. Setting Two adjacent outer London health authorities. Participants 45 bereaved families with children aged 2 to 16 years. Main outcome measures Psychological disturbance in parentally bereaved children and surviving ...

The provision of the sexually transmitted disease clinic service in the regional health authorities of England and Wales has been compared by relating the opening hours of clinics to the size of the population served. Relatively low levels of service were provided in the West Midlands and South-west Thames regions and high levels in the North-east and North-west Thames regions. When the service...

background a number of developing countries have contracted out public health facilities to the non-government organizations (ngos) in order to improve service utilization. however, there is a paucity of in-depth qualitative information on barriers to access services as a result of contracting from service users’ perspective. the objective of this study was to explore perceived barriers to util...

AIMS The aim of this paper is to report a trial to investigate the feasibility of the nurse practitioner role in local health service delivery and to provide information about the educational and legislative requirements for nurse practitioner practice. BACKGROUND Nurse practitioners have been shown to offer a beneficial service and fill a gap in health care provision. However, the lack of pu...

In response to the International Journal of Health Policy and Management (IJHPM)editorial, this commentary adds to the debate about ethical dimensions of compassionate care in UK service provision. It acknowledges the importance of the original paper, and attempts to explore some of the issues that are raised in the context of nursing practice, research and education. It is argued that each of ...