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Biomedical subjects

Ben Hannigan

Publications and source records attributed to Ben Hannigan.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Clinical supervision and burnout: the influence of clinical supervision for community mental health nurses.

AIMS: The aim of this study was to establish the degree to which clinical supervision might influence levels of reported burnout in community mental health nurses in Wales, UK. METHODS: The research instruments used were the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Manchester Clinical Supervision Scale. At the time of the survey 817 community mental health nurses were reported to work within Wales. Two hundred and sixty (32%) community mental heath nurses working in 11 NHS Trusts responded to the survey. RESULTS: One hundred and eighty-nine (73%) community mental heath nurses had experience of clinical supervision in their present posts and 105 (40%) in their previous posts. The findings from the Maslach Burnout Inventory indicated high levels of emotional exhaustion for 36%, high levels of depersonalization for 12% and low levels of personal accomplishment for 10% of the community mental heath nurses surveyed. Univariate analysis showed that those community mental heath nurses who were younger, male and who had not experienced six or more sessions of clinical supervision were more likely to report cold negative attitudes towards their clients as indicated by higher scores on the depersonalization subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. One hundred and sixty-six community mental heath nurses had experienced six or more sessions of clinical supervision and had completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Higher scores on the Manchester Clinical Supervision Scale were also associated with lower levels of measured burnout, with significant negative correlations between the total Manchester Clinical Supervision Scale score and the emotional exhaustion subscale (r = -0.148, P = 0.050) and the depersonalization subscale (r = -0.220, P = 0.003) of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. These findings suggest that if clinical supervision is effective then community mental heath nurses are likely to report lower levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. CONCLUSIONS: The findings from this study suggest that if clinical supervision is effective then community mental heath nurses report lower levels of burnout. Further research is required to determine the long-term benefits of implementing clinical supervision and to determine which other factors have an influence on levels of burnout for this group of nurses. Health service organizations have a responsibility for ensuring that all individual practitioners have access to effective clinical supervision and the Nursing and Midwifery Council could extend the registered nurses personal accountability to include - to seek clinical supervision as and when necessary.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

A tale of two studies: research governance issues arising from two ethnographic investigations into the organisation of health and social care.

In a number of countries throughout the world attention is being paid to the ways in which health and social care research is undertaken and regulated. In the United Kingdom, new research governance frameworks are intended to promote improvement in research quality. This paper draws on our experiences of seeking research ethics committee approval for two investigations with the same research design, in order to address four governance issues: consistency within and between ethics committees; the assessment of vulnerable individuals regarding their suitability to participate in studies; the relationship between ethics and access; and ethics committee understanding of qualitative research.

Anthropology, Cultural↗
PubMed2003

Conference report.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Congresses as Topic↗
PubMed2002

Challenging contemporary mental health policy: time to assuage the coercion?

BACKGROUND: In the United Kingdom (UK) and elsewhere throughout the world, the policy and legal frameworks that surround the provision of mental health care are becoming increasingly coercive. For example, emerging mental health policy in the UK includes a commitment to the introduction of compulsory treatment in the community. AIMS: In this paper, our aims are: to explore the context in which this more coercive mental health policy has arisen in the UK; to challenge the assumptions and the evidence that lie behind the introduction of proposed new mental health policies; and to consider the impact that a more coercive policy is likely to have on the practice of mental health nursing. DISCUSSION: In the UK, representatives of central government have declared that 'care in the community has failed'. This view has been reinforced by media representations of mental health issues. Policy documents have drawn attention to the risks posed by people with mental illnesses. Correspondingly, proposed initiatives emphasize the need to more closely 'manage' people with mental health problems, and set out a new legislative and policy framework to achieve this. We question the assumptions and evidence that underlie these planned new developments. We argue that, contrary to government assertions, there is no unequivocal evidence that 'community care' has failed. We observe, too, that people with mental health difficulties are often amongst the most vulnerable members of society. Finally, we consider the impact that a more coercive policy framework will have on the work of mental health nurses, and argue that the shift towards a more 'controlling' role is likely to run counter to what many nurses see as the 'core' of their work.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed2002

Education for community mental health nurses: a summary of the key debates.

A wide range of post-qualifying education courses exist for community mental health nurses (CMHNs) working in the UK. 'Specialist practitioner' courses emphasize shared learning between CMHNs and members of other community nursing branches. These programmes typically include course content drawing on the social and behavioural sciences, as well as on material more tailored to the clinical needs of practitioners. Such courses and their predecessors have been subject to criticism, however. Courses have been described as anachronistic, and failing to take account of recent advances in treatment modalities. In addition concerns about the generic focus of some programmes have also been raised. Educational alternatives, such as programmes preparing nurses and other mental health workers to provide 'psycho-social interventions' have, correspondingly, become increasingly popular. In this paper we explore some of the debates surrounding the education of CMHNs, and explore the context in which CMHNs work and in which educational programmes are devised. We consider the multidisciplinary environment in which CMHNs practise, the differing client groups with which CMHNs work, the developing policy framework in which mental health care is provided, demands for more user-responsive education, and the relationship between higher educational institutions and health care providers. We conclude the paper with a series of questions for CMHN educators and education commissioners.

Community Health Nursing↗
PubMed2000

Community nurses and social workers learning together: a report of an interprofessional education initiative in South Wales.

Collaboration between different professional groups and agencies is an essential element in the provision of high quality community care for people with complex health and social needs. There are, however, a number of barriers to effective interprofessional working. These include: the differing structures and operational philosophies of organizations; the differing languages and values of professional groups; professional and agency rivalries; and the fact that professional groups are, still, largely educated and trained in isolation. Interprofessional learning has been advocated as a possible solution to some of these problems. In this paper the rationale, planning, delivery and evaluation of one interprofessional education initiative are presented. Twelve months of planning between a team of three university teachers working in South Wales, United Kingdom, led to a combined group of community nursing and social work students following post-qualifying courses at undergraduate diploma and first degree level participating in two shared learning sessions. Using an interactive approach the student group explored, first, professional roles and responsibilities and secondly, engaged in group work focused on the discussion of case studies. Student evaluation of the sessions indicated an overwhelming appreciation of the importance of interprofessional education in unidisciplinary education programmes.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1999

Joint working in community mental health: prospects and challenges.

This paper reviews the opportunities for, and the challenges facing, joint working in the provision of community mental health care. At a strategic level the organization of contemporary mental health services is marked by fragmentation, competing priorities, arbitrary divisions of responsibility, inconsistent policy, unpooled resources and unshared boundaries. At the level of localities and teams, these barriers to effective and efficient joint working reverberate within multi-disciplinary and multi-agency community mental health teams (CMHTs). To meet this challenge, CMHT operational policies need to include multiagency agreement on: professional roles and responsibilities; target client groups; eligibility criteria for access to services; client pathways to and from care; unified systems of case management; documentation and use of information technology; and management and accountability arrangements. At the level of practitioners, community mental health care is provided by professional groups who may have limited mutual understanding of differing values, education, roles and responsibilities. The prospect of overcoming these barriers in multidisciplinary CMHTs is afforded by increased opportunities for interprofessional 'seepage' and a sharing of complementary perspectives, and for joint education and training. This review suggests that policy-driven solutions to the challenges facing integrated community mental health care may be needed and concludes with an overview of the prospects for change contained in the previous UK government's Green Paper, 'Developing Partnerships in Mental Health'.

Journal Article↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The case for specialist mental health training.

Proposals that would fundamentally change the nature of nursing training are being examined by the new Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) without many nurse educators or practitioners having had an opportunity to catch up with the issues. This article puts the case for a broadening of the debate, particularly in relation to retaining a specialist training for mental health nurses.

Curriculum↗