Workforce research priorities for resilience to future health shocks-and the workforce crisis.

More and better research is needed now to develop an evidence base that informs policy to maximise workforce effectiveness and wellbeing to respond to both the next health shock and the ongoing shock of the workforce crisis, write

The use of locum doctors in the NHS: understanding and improving the quality and safety of care.

Background: The use of locum doctors in the National Health Service is widely believed to have increased, and there have been widespread and sustained concerns among policy-makers, healthcare providers, professional associations and professional regulators about the quality/safety, cost and effective use of locum doctors.

Objectives: To provide evidence on the extent, quality and safety of medical locum practice and the implications of medical locum working for health service organisation and delivery in primary and secondary care in the English National Health Service, to support policy and practice.

Design: Four interlinked work packages involving surveys of National Health Service trusts and of general practices in England; semistructured interviews and focus groups across 11 healthcare organisations in England; analysis of existing routine data sets on the medical workforce in primary care and in National Health Service trusts in England from National Health Service Digital and National Health Service Improvement; and analysis of data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink in primary care and of electronic patient record data from two National Health Service hospitals in secondary care.

'None of Them Know Me': A Qualitative Study of the Implications of Locum Doctor Working for Patient Experience.

Introduction: There have been some concerns about the impact of temporary doctors, otherwise known as locums, on patient safety and the quality of care. Despite these concerns, research has paid little attention to the implications of locum working on patient experience.

Methods: A qualitative semi-structured interview study was conducted with 130 participants including locums, people working with locums and patients with experience of being seen or treated by locums.

Ancient genomes reveal over two thousand years of dingo population structure.

Dingoes are culturally and ecologically important free-living canids whose ancestors arrived in Australia over 3,000 B.P., likely transported by seafaring people.