Interpreting Professional Self-Regulation analyses the contribution made by the UKCC to the development of the nursing profession in this country over the last 30 years.It details the key issues the council grappled with during this time and provides in-depth analyses of the complexity of these issues. There is a general consensus that the current view of nursing's regulatory body will culminate in a major shake up of the way the nursing profession is governed and in which the UKCC will be radically transformed. This publication of the history of the UKCC will mark the close of a very significant period in nursing's history and the opening of wider debates about ensuring the safety of the public through regulation of health professionals. This is an important text for all those who teach on professional and policy issues in nursing, giving them a factual background that has never been brought together before, enabling them to bring discussion of post-registration education, discipline and other professional matters more firmly into the curriculum.

The image of the tightrope walker illustrates the interpreter s balancing act. Compelled to move forward at a pace set by someone else, interpreters compensate for pressures and surges that might push them into the void. The author starts from the observation that conference interpreters tend to see survival as being their primary objective. It is interpreters awareness of the essentially face-threatening nature of the profession that naturally induces them to seek what the author calls dynamic equilibrium, a constantly evolving state in which problems are resolved in the interests of maintaining the integrity of the system as a whole. By taking as a starting point the more visible interventions interpreters make (comments on speed of delivery, on exchanges between the chair and the floor), the author is able to explore the interpreter s instinct for self-preservation in an inherently unstable environment. This volume is an insightful and refreshing account of interpreters behavior from the other side of the glass-fronted booth."

7. Summary and conclusions

`It has particular appeal for health-care professionals and managers with an interest in corporate and clinical governance′ - British Journal of Perioperative Nursing In recent years the health professions have been subject to unprecedented regulatory changes. Exposure of poor practice provoked widespread criticism of self-regulation and calls for a system in which the interests of health care consumers and employers are more fully recognized. Examining the historical and contemporary context, Regulating the Health Professions provides an in-depth analysis of professional self-regulation and the implications of regulatory change for the future of health care. Part One sets out general regulatory issues in the healthcare arena with chapters covering the impact of globalization on the professions, the purpose of professional regulation, the legal context of regulation and the significance of professional codes of ethics. In Part Two, issues specific to the different professions are explored through chapters on medicine, nursing, dentistry, the professions allied to medicine, clinical psychology and alternative medicine. This extremely topical book will be of interest to students, educators and researchers in a wide range of disciplines including sociology, social policy, politics and health studies, and to healthcare professionals and their managers.

Histories of medicine and science are histories of political and social change, as well as accounts of the transformation of particular disciplines over time. Taking their inspiration from the work of Charles Webster, the essays in this volume consider the effect that demands for social and political reform have had on the theory and, above all, the practice of medicine and science, and on the promotion of human health, from the Renaissance and Enlightenment up to the present. The eighteen essays by an international group of scholars provide case studies, covering a wide range of locations and contexts, of the successes and failures of reform and reformers in challenging the status quo. They discuss the impact of religious and secular ideologies on ideas about the nature and organization of health, medicine, and science, as well as the effects of social and political institutions, including the professions themselves, in shaping the possibilities for reform and renewal. The Practice of Reform in Health, Medicine, and Science, 1500-2000 also addresses the afterlife of reforming concepts, and describes local and regional differences in the practice and perception of reform, culminating in the politics of welfare in the twentieth century. The authors build up a composite picture of the interaction of politics and health, medicine, and science in western Europe over time that can pose questions for the future of policy as well as explaining some of the successes and failures of the past.

This textbook draws on international contributors with a range of backgrounds to explore, engage with and challenge readers in understanding the many aspects and elements that inform and influence contemporary nursing practice. With a focus to the future, this book explores the challenges facing health services and presents the arguments for a nursing contribution and influence in ensuring safe and quality care. Readers are supported to explore how, as individuals, they can shape their personal nursing identity and practice. The structure of the text is based on the belief that an individual nurse’s professional identity is developed through an interaction between their personal attributes and the influences of the profession itself. Reflecting this approach, the authors engage in a conversation with the reader rather than simply presenting a series of facts and information. Organised around a series of topical and pertinent questions and drawing on perspectives from policy, education and practice, the book explores a diverse range of topics such as: how historical and popular media representations of nursing hold back nursing practice today; the opportunities presented through education and nursing role development to increase the nursing contribution to health services; the economic and political influences on nursing and health care; how the professional regulation of nurses and core values informs your practice; ways to define and develop your own strong nursing identity. Central chapter questions provide ideal triggers for group discussions in class or online and equally as discussion topics between colleagues to support ongoing professional development. There is an emphasis throughout Nurses and Nursing on challenging thinking to recast nursing practice for the future by encouraging the reader to explore and create their emerging nursing identity or re-examine previously long held views. This text supports the reader to better understand health care, nursing and most importantly themselves as nurses.

This original and innovative book opens up new perspectives in health policy debate, examining the emerging international trends in the governance of health professions and the significance of national contexts for the changing health workforce. In bringing together research from a wide range of continental European countries as well as the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, the contributors highlight different arenas of governance, as well as the various players involved in the policy process. They expand the public debate on professional governance - hitherto mainly limited to medical self-regulation - to encompass a broad span of health care providers, from nurses and midwives to alternative therapists and health support workers. The book provides new data and geopolitical perspectives in the debate over how to govern health care. It helps to better understand both the enabling conditions for, and the barriers to, making professionals more accountable to the interests of a changing public. This book will be a valuable resource for students at an undergraduate and postgraduate level, particularly for health programmes, sociology of professions and comparative health policy, but also for academics, researchers and managers working in health care.