Social aspects of clinical errors.

Clinical errors, whether committed by doctors, nurses or other professions allied to healthcare, remain a sensitive issue requiring open debate and policy formulation in order to reduce them. The literature suggests that the issues underpinning errors made by healthcare professionals involve concerns about patient safety, professional disclosure, apology, litigation, compensation, processes of recording and policy development to enhance quality service. Anecdotally, we are aware of narratives of minor errors, which may well have been covered up and remain officially undisclosed whilst the major errors resulting in damage and death to patients alarm both professionals and public with resultant litigation and compensation.

"Modern language" or "spin"? Nursing, "newspeak" and organizational culture: new health scriptures.

A new managerial language of modernization has accompanied political restructuring of the National Health Service. Corporate goals of efficiency and audit have been integrated with the ideological manifesto of New Labour in stressing citizenship, inclusion and empowerment. Drawing on the theoretical insights of anthropology and sociology, this article critically reviews the relationship between health policy, organizational culture and nursing practise through an exploration of language in terms of "rhetoric", "jargon" and "metaphor".

The influence of evil on forensic clinical practice.

As the medicalization of criminal behaviour expands through forensic psychiatric practice it is reliant upon a therapeutic ideology based on clinical assessment and effective application of treatment strategies. When such criminal offenses are particularly heinous the perpetrators are often referred to as evil by non-professional accounts. However, the extent to which the concept of evil affects the perceptions of mental health professionals working with such offenders is little understood.

The vignette revisited: evil and the forensic nurse.

The vignette is a valuable and flexible research tool in behavioural sciences and health care. Joel Richman and Dave Mercer outline the variable application of this method and propose a classification in terms of the form and use of the vignette. The discussion is illustrated with an example of the way that vignettes provided access to the discursive structures of forensic mental health nurses in one maximum secure psychiatric hospital.