NHS Scotland appears to be in crisis. Today the British media is full of headlines such as “89-year-old great-grandmother waits 5 hours for an ambulance.” These are a talking point for a day or two and then another headline of a similar ilk takes over. This book examines the traumatic experiences of the elderly people whose stories make up these headlines. The authors have carried out research into the effects of long waiting times for ambulances and the problems that NHS Scotland is facing through chronic staff shortages. The waits and the limitations to patient care have long term implications for the patients, the relatives and the staff. Throughout the book we discuss iatrogenic disease/harm that is occurring daily for patients, visitors and staff. The book concentrates on the new Glasgow hospital, The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, which opened its doors in 2015. This is one of the largest hospitals in Europe and replaces 5 older Glasgow hospitals and has been beset by major problems since its opening. By interviewing relatives and staff, the authors have examined their experiences both during and following a traumatic event. Themes found throughout the book include poor communication, trauma, low staff morale, suicide and the problems caused by the size and design of the hospital. The authors have also analysed statistics from NHS Scotland and Scottish Ambulance Service regarding waiting times and the use of agency staff. The overarching goal of this book was to give a voice to those behind the statistics.

This volume is a collection of subject-oriented studies on paid work. Each chapter refers to the social structures that form conditions for peoples’ working contexts and interprets workers’ and employees’ narrations on work. Work appropriation—a process of formation of subjectivity, in which workers and employees relate to the social status of their occupations and the use-value of their work in actively dealing with the work’s content and conditions—serves as a comprehensive concept for each varying subject-oriented approach in the volume. ‘Work Appropriation and Social Inequality’ focuses on social inequality, understood as the distribution of life chances that privilege some and discriminate others and reveals the unequal conditions for, and outcomes of, work appropriation. By analyzing work appropriation, it uses a broader concept than that of ‘meaning of work’ or ‘meaningful work’ as it includes the practice and processes of working. The volume’s subject-oriented approach to work differs from the stream ‘subjectivation’ in going beyond individuals’ desires for self-realization in work and to companies’ requirements of accessing emotional and personal dimensions of their workforce. The volume contains three parts: the first lays out basic approaches to work appropriation and social inequality, the second analyses current threats to work appropriation in the UK and Germany, and the third consists of a philosophical outlook on work in the Anthropocene. The book’s impact lies in pushing forward the debate on how work appropriations are linked to unequal social structures. It will therefore appeal to social scientists interested in social inequality, sociology of work and organization, as well as students and teachers at the undergraduate and graduate level in the areas of social sciences.

The Coronavirus pandemic in 2020 has changed life as we know it and thrust the NHS into the spotlight. A nation in lockdown has adorned windows with rainbows and stepped onto doorsteps every Thursday to celebrate the people who are risking their lives by turning up to work. But as the grim reports of deaths from the disease cumulate, along with stories of insufficient protective equipment for staff, there is hope that the crisis will raise awareness and bring change to the way the NHS and its people are treated.At midnight on 5 July 1948, the National Health Service was born with the founding principal to be free at the point of use and based on clinical need rather than on a person's ability to pay. Over seventy years since its formation, these core principals still hold true, but the world has changed. Persistent underfunding has not kept pace with increased demand for healthcare, leading to longer waiting times, staffing shortages and low moral.This book traces the history of our health service, from Victorian healthcare and the early 20th century, through a timeline of change to the current day, comparing the problems and illnesses of 1948 to those we face today. Politics and funding are demystified and the effects of the pandemic are discussed, alongside personal stories from frontline staff and patients who have experienced our changing NHS.

The nature of human reason is one of the thorniest of mysteries in philosophy. The reason appears in many specific forms within general areas such as cognition, thinking, experiencing beauty, and moral judgment. These forms are “perfectly” known in philosophy, yet an unknown pattern has been noticed which shows us that they are all a variation of the same theme: truth is an identity relation between the “thought” and “reality”; justice is an identity relation between the given and the deserved; beauty is an identity relation as rhyme is an identity relation between the final sounds of words; rhythm is an identity relation between time intervals; symmetry is an identity relation between two halves; proportion is an identity relation between two ratios; anaphora is an identity relation between the initial words. Particular things are identities in themselves and universals are identities between particulars. One idea associates another idea identical to it; an analogy is an identity between relations; induction is an identification between the known and unknown instances; and all the logic rests on the law of identity. What is common for all of them is the nature of reason itself.

How do people turn out the way they do? How do they “arrive” at themselves and attain an identity? How are our identities affected by our birth order, our hair color, how tall or short we are, our intelligence, our occupation, our race, our religion, our nationality, the socio-economic level of our parents (or our being raised in a single-parent family), where we are born and where we grow up, the language we learn, the way we use language, our fashion tastes, our gender, our education, our psychological makeup, chance experiences we have, the people we marry (if we marry), and countless other factors? There are numerous matters to consider when dealing with identity, which, as Nigel Denis, the author of 'Cards of Identity', reminds us, “is the answer to everything.” 'Searching for a Self' takes a deep dive into the question of identity formation from various perspectives; it is written in a reader-friendly accessible style and makes use of insightful quotations from seminal thinkers who have dealt with the topic. Split into two parts, the first “Theories of Identity,” offers evaluations of identity from semioticians, psychologists, sociologists and Marxists while the second, “Applications,” offers case studies on topics such as Russian identity, Donald Trump’s identity, fashion and identity, LGBTQIA+ identity, Orthodox Jewish identity, elite university education and identity, tattoos and identity, travel and identity, and politics and identity. Covering a wide array of subject areas, this book will be a valuable resource for undergraduate students taking courses in identity, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, and other related fields.

This book addresses one of the UK’s most persistent and serious concerns: knife crime. While research diagnosing the cause of rising knife crime abounds, few studies articulate effective solutions to this complex social problem. Drawing on data from cities across the UK, Sue Roberts suggests concrete forms of collaboration that may just spare future generations from the worst of this terrifying scourge. “Solutions to knife crime: a path through the red sea?” will fascinate law-enforcers, policy-makers, criminologists and other specialists both within and outside academia. It will also appeal to anyone who’s been affected, or is simply concerned, by this blight on British society.

Equity and Excellence : Liberating the NHS: Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Health by Command of Her Majesty