The Professional Development of Nursing and Midwifery in Ireland: Key Challenges for the Twenty-First Century provides a unique overview of the many changes that are taking place in the Irish health services, and details how they will continue to affect the professions of nursing and midwifery. It explores how nurses and midwives interact with others in the health services and how nursing and midwifery are a rich resource in the delivery of an efficient and effective healthcare service. This book is a comprehensive guide to what it means to be a nurse or midwife in today’s Irish health services. It is essential reading for all those involved in nursing and midwifery education (both students and educators), and is a reference book for clinical practitioners, employers and all those involved in the formulation of policies for the health services and the regulation of the professions.

Over the past ten years, nursing and midwifery in Ireland have experienced a considerable number of changes, driven principally by the Report of the Commission on Nursing, published in 1998, and the health service reform programme, announced in 2003. In the same period, Irish society has become wealthier and more culturally diverse, creating new challenges for nursing and midwifery. In Nursing and Midwifery in Ireland, Yvonne O'Shea sets out to identify the role for nursing and midwifery in the health services of the future in Ireland and to formulate a strategy for the professional development required for the professions. The book has three parts. Part 1 sets out to establish the context within which the professions of nursing and midwifery operate in Ireland by examining the implications of recent key policy developments and the roles played by the Report of the Commission on Nursing and the National Council for the Professional Development of Nursing and Midwifery. Part 2 forms the core of the book and is based on seventy-seven interviews with senior figures in the health services, including policymakers, service managers, medical consultants, educators and leaders of nursing and midwifery. Part 3 goes on to outline a strategy for the professional development of nursing and midwifery, including key steps necessary to reach objectives and to realise the strategy's long-term vision. Published at a time of significant change within the health services in Ireland, the book is intended as a contribution to ensuring that nursing and midwifery take their place at the heart of health service transformation. It will be of great value to all role players in the Irish health service.

The introduction in Ireland in 2008 of the clinical directorate model as the accepted method for the organisation of health services and the involvement of clinicians in the management of these services is one of the most significant developments to happen in the Irish health services in recent years. It poses major challenges for all clinical and medical professions. In Clinical Directorates in the Irish Health Services, Yvonne O'Shea explores the history and evolution of clinical directorates over the last thirty years in order to arrive at a deep understanding of the thinking behind them and the impact they are likely to have on Irish health services. Clinical Directorates in the Irish Health Services is about making the right choices in the management of health services. It suggests that the involvement of clinicians in management and in making decisions about how resources are used, in acute and primary settings, is the most efficient way to guarantee the effective use of resources and the safety of patients. Clinical Directorates in the Irish Health Services provides Irish clinical professionals with a resource to assist them in understanding the clinical directorate model and their own role within it.

Europeanization has generated a galaxy of regimes, laws, organizations, new actors, and networks that have diluted institutional barriers to interaction across national borders. Many nation-based policy competencies have been transferred to the European level. The European Union (EU), the world's first regional regulator, bears consequences for the development of public policy and for policies affiliated with the nursing profession.With limited exception, the EU does not have formal powers in the health care arena. However, as a result of its efforts in other fields, it has been heavily involved with health care and its providers. Nursing in the European Union demonstrates how the organization has refashioned the nursing world throughout the member states via its power in many other policy domains. This volume focuses on the EU's impact on nursing education, regulation, and research endeavours, and suggests strategies to achieve desired objectives. Volume 2, Nursing in the European Union: The World of Work, to be published in Fall 2016, focuses on real-life situations and problems EU nurses face: wages, stress, and dispute resolution.Sondra Z. Koff integrates the European experience with a discussion of nursing in the real world, and presents the nursing profession in light of the European Union, its components, its mechanisms, and its output and activities.

Continuing professional development (CPD) has become a defining issue in twenty-first century social work. There is widespread consensus in favour of CPD. But what is it? Are there discernible international trends? What are the barriers to participating in CPD? What do social workers think about and want from CPD? This book seeks to answer these questions. Based on a survey and interviews with social work practitioners, CPD in social work offers a unique insight into the possibilities and challenges of CPD and the issues it presents for newly qualified and experienced social workers in practice. Combining the perspectives of social workers and their managers with international research, assures its global appeal. It offers possible directions for the future of post qualifying social work education, making it essential reading for practitioners, educators, managers and policy-makers.

Designated a Doody's Core Title! Supporting the urgent need for new patient safety guidelines and practices, Focus on Patient Safety, provides the most current and authoritative research and review to help decision makers develop new and much-needed standards and practices in nursing. With contributions from experts in the field, this new up-to-date reference focuses on key disciplines and topics that are critical to patient safety today including: Patient safety indicators Medication errors Falls and injury prevention Hospital-acquired infections Patient safety in acute-care units in hospitals Medications in the perioperative environment Home visit programs for the elderly Nursing homes Informatics issues Organizational, climate, and culture factors From new and emerging issues in patient safety to a review of research methods and measurement, this new 24th volume in the Annual Review of Nursing Research (ARNR) series continues to provide the highest standards of content and authoritative review of research for students, researchers, and clinicians.

Qualitative research, once on the fringes, now plays a central part in advancing nursing and midwifery knowledge, contributing to the development of the evidence base for healthcare practice. Divided into four parts, this authoritative handbook contains over forty chapters on the state of the art and science of qualitative research in nursing. The first part begins by addressing the significance of qualitative inquiry to the development of nursing knowledge, and then goes on to explore in depth programs of qualitative nursing research. The second section focuses on a wide range of core qualitative methods, from descriptive phenomenology, through to formal grounded theory and to ethnography, and narrative research. The third section highlights key issues and controversies in contemporary qualitative nursing research, including discussion of ethical and political issues, evidence-based practice and Internet research. The final section takes a unique look at qualitative nursing research as it is practiced throughout the world with chapters on countries and regions from the UK and Europe, North America, Australasia, Latin America, to Japan, China, and Korea. With an international selection of established scholars contributing, this is an essential overview and will help to propel qualitative research in nursing well into the twenty-first century. It is an invaluable reference for all nursing researchers.