Nurse competence in the interface between primary and tertiary healthcare services.

Aims: (a) To explore nurses' self-assessed competence and perceived need for more training in primary and tertiary healthcare services; and (b) to investigate the factors associated with these issues.

Design: Quantitative, cross-sectional, descriptive.

Methods: The ProffNurseSAS, the Job Satisfaction Scale and socio-demographics were used.

Debating the use of work-based learning and interprofessional education in promoting collaborative practice in primary care: a discussion paper.

Background: The context of primary care in the UK is changing rapidly, underpinned by continuing policy drivers to ensure person-centred safe and effective practice. Undergraduate and postgraduate programmes for healthcare practitioners are increasingly using interprofessional education (IPE) as one route to engender greater understanding of others' roles and contributions to health care, with the suggestion that IPE leads to better integration and teamwork, and thus stronger collaborative practice. Access to education and professional development for those working in primary care is difficult, and individuals need the focus of learning to be clearly relevant to their practice.

Establishing the contribution of nursing in the community to the health of the people of Scotland: integrative literature review.

Aim: This paper is a report of an integrative literature review to explore the evidence base for nursing in the community.

Background: The Scottish Executive (2005) in Scotland (UK), announced that a review of nursing in the community should be undertaken to inform implementation of the policy Delivering for Health. This policy called for a fundamental shift in the focus of care away from acute hospitals into the community where health care in the future will be concentrated.

Advanced nursing practice: an introduction to physical assessment.

Changing philosophies of clinical management and moves to reduce junior doctors' hours have led to increasing pressure upon nurses to take on the responsibility for assessing and initiating the management of acutely ill patients. Although nurses have been educated to assess, plan, and deliver care in a format known as the nursing process, this does not fully equip them for the demands of their rapidly developing roles. With increased responsibility comes the risk of increased stress and legal accountability, particularly where inadequate support is provided.

Artificial ventilation in the prone position.

Turning a ventilated patient into the prone position can greatly enhance arterial blood oxygenation independent of ventilator parameters. This article explores the physiology relating to pulmonary ventilation, highlighting an overall improvement in ventilation/perfusion matching as a result of the prone position. A series of small studies seems to suggest that prone positioning can have a dramatic effect on life-threatening hypoxia, including adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) but as yet there have been no large, randomised, multi-centre trials to put beyond doubt the benefits of prone ventilation.