Advanced financial reporting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Advanced financial reporting - Essay Example Also, it includes comprehensive description of disclosures that ought to be given in an annual report that gives a transparent, true and fair picture of company’s performance to existing and potential investors. After this follows second question which focuses on comparison between voluntary and mandatory guidelines in respect of environmental reporting. It requires detailed discussion about effectiveness of both guidelines and what advantages and disadvantages does their compliance offer for a company. The last question inquires about the current and proposed programmes to be effective in future relating to environmental compliances and regulations and how they might be helpful in ensuring better transparency and clarity of environmental reporting. Further the discussion entails about corporate measures that organizations should use to become alert and informed about regulations which are applicable in their case, about amendments therein and strategies to comply with them ad equately. Finally, the paper closes with concluding statements about how companies should be more environmentally responsible in its operations and true in provision of its facts and disclosures in annual reports for its shareholders and potential investors. ... Therefore, they take reasonable steps to mitigate harmful and adverse effects to acceptable levels. Some examples of environmental footprints include water spills, contamination, poisonous wastages and leakages, air pollution, carbon emission, greenhouse gas emission etc. Regulatory bodies and environmental authorities have been working constantly to make environmental laws and regulations stricter to protect public interests and give better picture to investors. Few mandatory guidelines have already been placed that are compulsory to be followed while other voluntary guidelines have been published for different industries to identify best benchmark practices which might be followed by entities on own motion to depict ‘greener’ reputation and public image to satisfy its members and potential investors. However, in order to ensure compliance with environmental frameworks, it is pivotal to be fully aware of all applicable regulations. Environmental risks can be mitigated t hrough establishment of Environmental Management System and allotment of a dedicated team responsible for addressing all environmental concerns. Furthermore, organizations must account for relevant environmental costs and provisions for future obligations such as dismantling, cleanup and litigation costs in its financial statements. Environmental reporting disclosures can be as comprehensive as an entity would consider adequate since only few mandatory regulations exist. Therefore, environment-friendly stance of any organization shall depend on how detailed are the disclosures provided by it in its annual report and accounts. Question 1 In view of the contents of the document provided and the materials covered in the module, does the annual report currently

Interview an agency administrator Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Interview an agency administrator - Essay Example The case record in an agency has several purposes. One of the purposes is to provide information for quality improvement and evaluation of activities. It is also used for purposes of research as it provides a baseline for the research. The case record ensures transparency and accountability of the financial bodies of the agency. The content elements in the case record structure include the problem or diagnose including its cause. Another content element is the interventions which provide the way in which the problem is treated or solved. The outcome is the last content element in the case recording structure. It presents the progress of the case that is, whether it is fairing well or it is worse. Thus the structure is designed in that, the problem appears first followed by the intervention and lastly is the outcomes of the case. There are different purposes of content and structure in case recording. One of the purposes is to provide clear information about the client situation which is the problem. According to Kiser (2007), content and structure provide a clear flow of the assessment that was done on the client. They show the information about the services that are offered to the client hence accountability. They also provide details of case was implemented and also information about the end of the case.

Artwork Analysis Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Artwork Analysis - Research Paper Example This research paper not only describes Impressionism as a direction in French painting art, but also compares the artwork of two painting artists, which were Henri Rousseau and Camille Pissarro, who had contributed their skills and paintings in this period. Paintings, that are entitled Exotic Landscape and Landscape with Flock of Sheep were analyzed in details by researcher of the paper. First of the paintings of Henri Rousseau is entitled â€Å"Exotic Landscape† which was painted in the year 1910. Some visual elements of this work are duscussed, such as it's colors, horizontal lines, diagonal lines, straight lines and vertical lines, that were used to represent the plants and leaves. The meanings of the shapes and colors used by the artist are also discussed by the researcher. Second painting analyzed was by Camille Pissarro, and is entitled Landscape with Flock of Sheep. In visual elements of this painting, it is obvious that he didn’t used lines like Henri Rousseau but used colors in dots or patches. In the conclusion of the essay, the differences between the paintings are given. First, it is the way the two artist used their brushstrokes. For Pissarro, it can be perceived that his brushstroke was used in a quickly manner while in the work of Rousseau we can perceived that he uses his brushstroke in a smoothly manner. The colors of the two paintings are also very different. To sum up, the painting of Rousseau is more on imaginary tropical landscape but for Pissarro, it is more on the real image of the rural life of French.

The theory of natural selection has been applied to human culture in Essay

The theory of natural selection has been applied to human culture in many different realms. How are the forces that produce diff - Essay Example In India, where social stratification still obviously persists, the rich became rich because he came from a rich family. In contrast, the poor cannot reach the same affluence because the society simply does not permit such occurrence. Second, there is differential reproduction (www.berkeley.edu). In the end of Jurassic era, the huge terrestrial animals might have gone extinct, but the boring creatures such as cockroaches continue to live on until the present. However, unlike in Biology wherein the favored group of creatures prospered, it is not the case in society. Rich Chinese clans, for example, only allow marriages among their family members, so as to maintain their huge assets within the same knit of people. Third, there is inheritance (www.berkley.edu). For example, in humans, the two-leggedness has been passed more successfully than four-leggedness, because the stand-up stance can better utilize their eyes in searching for new places to move on. The same absoluteness cannot be said about society. The traits inherited do not do anything to the social stratification. Among the rich, it is only the name that allows one to be in a favorable strata. However, not all family members do not really end up rich. Those that have become rich did not just have the name, but also the persistence and education This character, in turn, can only be molded with experience, not heredity. References Thorpe, R. S.

Postmodernism, Hyperreality and the Hegemony of Spectacle in New Hollywood Essay Example for Free

Postmodernism, Hyperreality and the Hegemony of Spectacle in New Hollywood Essay After the screening of The Matrix on its first release, a dear cousin of mine, film connoisseur and avid fan of classical movies, spontaneously made the following comment: â€Å"This is an entirely new cinema to me! † If anything, The Matrix is a clear marker of cultural change. A film with state-of-the-art production values like this is bound to elicit in us the belated realization of how slow our response has been to the cultural products of an entirely transformed film industry, that of New Hollywood. My cousin’s casual and unwitting remark reflects the embarrassment felt by both professional critic and layman alike in coping with contemporary movies, especially when we still tend to approach New Hollywood products with the standards of the Old Hollywood cinema. Because of our adherence to tradition, we still tend to look for those classical values of â€Å"development†, â€Å"coherence† and â€Å"unity† in narratives only to find with disappointment that narrative plots become thinner, that characters are reduced to one-dimensional stereotypes and that action is carried through by loosely-linked sequences, built around spectacular stunts, dazzling stars and special effects. Narrative complexity is sacrificed on the altar of spectacle† (Buckland 166) as today’s blockbusters turn out to be nothing but calculated exercises in profit-making, all high-concept, high-gloss and pure show. Similar cries of warning about the loss of narrative integrity to cinematic spectacle have been voiced at different periods, usually at times of crisis or change in the history of the American cinema. One could cite, for example, Bazin’s disdain at the â€Å"displacement of classicism† by the baroque style, marking the end of the pure phase of classical cinema. His coined term, â€Å"superwestern, †designates the â€Å"emergence of a new kind of western† (Kramer 290), that, according to Bazin, â€Å"would be ashamed to be just itself, and looks for some additional interest to justify its existence—an aesthetic, sociological, moral, psychological, political, or erotic interest† (150-1). Similarly, in 1957 Manny Farber, taking his cue from Bazin’s superwestern, laments the â€Å"disappearance of this [classical] roduction system and the closing of action-oriented neighborhood theaters in the 1950s†. He claims that directors like Howard Hawks â€Å"who had flourished in ‘a factory of unpretentious picture-making’ were pushed towards artistic self-consciousness, thematic seriousness, and big-budget spectacle â€Å"(Kramer 293, emphasis added). A decade later, Pauline Kael too expresses her fears at the disintegration of filmic narrative which she attributes to the abrasion of traditional film production in general. She laments not only the emphasis on â€Å"technique† â€Å"purely visual content,† and â€Å"open-ended, elaborate interpretations† of the experimental and innovative art film of the New American Cinema, but as Kramer puts it, she was equally critical of the experiences facilitated by Hollywood’s mainstream releases. The lack of concern for coherent storytelling on the part of producers and directors in charge of the volatile and overblown process of filmmaking was matched by the audience’s enthusiastic response to spectacular attractions and shock effects, irrespective of their degree of narrative motivation. 296) Voices of dissatisfaction were heard at another major turn in the history of Hollywood, that is in the late 1970s, when the â€Å"unprecedented box-office success of Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977), signaled Hollywood’s aesthetic, cultural and industrial re-orientation towards movies with more emphasis on special effects and cin ematic spectacle† (Kramer 301). Unlike the classical movies produced on the assembly line under the studio regime (films that respected narrative integrity and refined story ideas into the classical three-act of exposition, complication and resolution), the products of New Hollywood, says critic Richard Schickel, seem â€Å"to have lost or abandoned the art of narrative. [Filmmakers] are generally not refining stories at all, they are spicing up ‘concepts’ (as they like to call them), refining gimmicks, making sure there are no complexities to fur our tongue when it comes time to spread the word of mouth†(3). Contemporary cinema has come to depend so much on shrewd marketing and advertising strategies that its pictures, as Mark Crispin Miller points out, â€Å"like TV ads, aspire to a total ‘look’ and seem more designed than directed† (49). The difficulty that critics nowadays face with films like The Matrix and the new situation in Hollywood, is not only unlike the layman’s inability to assess â€Å"any recent Hollywood film as a discreet textual artifact that is either ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than the artifact produced under the studio regime,† Cook and Bernink note (99). It has also to do with regarding â€Å"the textual form of recent Hollywood as expressive of changed production circumstances that lead to a different kind of textual artifact†(ibid. ). In other words, as we move on in our globalized, high-tech age, it is becoming increasingly difficult to regard any single movie as a self-contained, autonomous text. On the contrary, as Eileen Meehan contends, it has become imperative to look upon any New Hollywood mainstream release â€Å"always and simultaneously as text and commodity, intertext and product line† (31). In order to revise our critical standards and respond effectively to the new status of the contemporary Hollywood movie, we need to grasp the dramatic changes that the American film industry has undergone in the post-classical period, which started right after World War II and culminated to a point of radical transformation in the post-1975 period, which has eventually come to best warrant the term New Hollywood. These changes have been lucidly described in a number of historiographic studies (Ray 1985, Balio 1985, 1990, Schatz 1983, 1993, Gomery 1986, Bernardoni 1991, Corrigan 1991, Hillier 1992, Wasko 1994, Kramer 1998, Neale and Smith 1998, Cook and Bernink 1999) which collectively shed ample light on the completely new situation defining New Hollywood. What has drastically changed is both the ways movies are made and the ways in which Hollywood has been doing business. After the government’s dismantling of the â€Å"vertically-integrated† studio system, the industry turned to producing and selling motion pictures on a film-by-film basis, resulting in the shift of power from studio heads to deal-makers (agents), in the rise of independent producers/directors, and in a more competitive and fragmented movie marketplace (Schatz 9). To the rise of TV and the emergence of other competing media technologies (VCRs, Cable and Satellite TV) Hollywood responded with a re-orientation towards blockbuster movies, â€Å"these high-cost, high-tech, high-stakes, multi-purpose entertainment machines that breed music videos and soundtrack albums, TV series and videocassettes, video games and theme park rides, novelizations and comic books† (Schatz 9). Despite the â€Å"increasingly fragmented but ever more expanding entertainment industry – with its demographics and target audiences, its diversified multimedia conglomerates, its global(ized) markets and new delivery systems†, the calculated blockbuster, as New Hollywood’s feature film, remains the driving force of the industry (ibid. ). This is testified by the monumental success of the blockbuster at the box-office. Schatz cites Variety’s commissioned study of the industry’s all-time commercial hits, in which only 2 movies of the classical period appear to have reached the top, whereas â€Å"90 of the top 100 hits have been produced since 1970, and all of the top 20 since Jaws in 1975†(9). The big-budget, all-star, spectacular hits of the late fifties and early sixties (such as The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, Cleopatra, or Dr. Zhivago) have some sizable profits to show for (all in the vicinity of $25-to $50 million). By the standards of their age, they were considered colossal box-office successes; however, by today’s standards they seem quite puny contestants to the post-75 era of super-blockbusters which generate record-setting grosses, well beyond the $100 million barrier (always in constant dollars). And such a figure applies only to theatrical rentals, which accounts just for a percentage of the total revenue of a movie which also finds outlets in ancillary markets. he industry’s spectacular growth and expansion (its horizontal integration) is to a great extent owing to the take-over of the majors (Paramount, Fox, Columbia, MCA/Universal) by huge media empires (Warner/Time Communications, Murdoch’s News Corporations, Sony, Matsushita, respectively) forming multimedia conglomerates with diverse interests in the domestic and the global market, with holdings in movies, TV production, cable, records, book and magazine publications, video games, theme parks, consumer electron ics (both software and hardware). These huge corporations provide financial muscle for the multi-million production budgets of the blockbusters (since the production costs have themselves sky-rocketed), but also market muscle for promotion. Marketing and advertising strategies have been the key to the unprecedented success of the New Hollywood movie since Jaws: through pre-selling, usually cashing in on the popularity of a novel published prior to production, a movie becomes a media â€Å"event† by heavy advertising on prime-time TV and the press, as well as by the massive simultaneous release in thousands of mall-based multiplex theaters. Calculated blockbuster productions are carefully designed to ensure the greatest potential profit not only through extended theatrical rental (sequels, re-issues, remakes, director’s cut), but also though capitalization in ancillary markets: soon the movie will come out on videocassette, audio-cassette, novel, computer game, and the increasingly popular since the mid-nineties, DVD, let alone an extended market career through by-products ranging from the CD movie soundtrack to T-shirts and toys, which contribute to the impressive surge in profits. It becomes obvious thus why contemporary movies cannot be conceived of as individual entities and cannot be separately examined from their economic intertext that renders them part (or rather the driving belt) of a larger entertainment machine and advertising campaign. Expensive blockbusters, which in the early days of the post-classical period were the exception and now, as Schatz states, have become the rule, â€Å"are the central output of modern Hollywood. But what, aside from costs, are their dominant characteristics? How are they able to attract, engage and entertain millions of people? asks Warren Buckland (166). The blockbuster syndrome has also changed the movies’ mode of address. Designed around a main idea, what is called â€Å"high concept†, a blockbuster becomes increasingly plot-driven, increasingly visceral, kinetic, fast-paced, increasingly reliant on special effects, increasingly â€Å"fantastic† (and thus apolitical), and increasingly targeted at younger audiences. And significantly enough, the lack of complex characters or plot [as for example] in Star Wars opens the film to other possibilities, notably its amalgamation of genre conventions and its elaborate play of cinematic references. But while these movies enjoy a great popularity among younger audiences, as their huge box-office success indicates, the loss of narrative integrity to spectacle, and the sense of escapism and triviality usually associated with high-gloss, star glamour and dumb show, has driven most academics or old-cinema cinephiles to summarily shun or dismiss blockbusters as merely calculated exercises in shameless profiteering. Warren Buckland thinks that these arguments about the loss of narrative potential in the contemporary feature film are overstated and attempts to reverse the â€Å"unhelpful and hostile evaluative stance† (167) of the critics towards the blockbuster. Focusing on a typical action-adventure blockbuster, Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Arc heproposes adopting an analytical and descriptive approach to these films, an approach dubbed by Bordwell and Thompson â€Å"historical oetics. † Part of the argument he makes is that â€Å"historical poetics† can account for the popularity of movies with such a broad appeal (and allows us to take them seriously as aesthetic, cultural objects) â€Å"especially because movies are examined in terms of their individuality, including their response to their historical moment, in which style and composition respond to the historical questions posed in the culture in which the film is made† (168-169). In other words, the issue is not so much about the so-called death of narrative—because narrative is still alive and well—but the emergence of a new kind of narrative, whose meaning is conveyed not through traditional narration but by emphasis on spectacle and the visual impact of the pictures which provide additional narrative pleasure and have changed the patterns of viewer response. Thus Buckland’s concluding remark that â€Å"it is perhaps time to stop condemning the New Hollywood blockbuster and to start, instead, to understand it,† carries more merit than we have been ready to admit. My intention in this essay is to extend the argument about the narrative/ spectacle issue in the direction suggested by Buckland, but within a wider, cultural perspective. The supremacy of the visual and the spectacular over traditional narration in the textual form of contemporary movies is not only expressive of the changed production values and the text’s signifying practices; it is also reflective of the changed cultural patterns and lifestyle habits in postmodernity. Classical cinema favored traditional storytelling because it provided a univocal interpretation of life and reflected a uniformity in entertainment habits: cinema was the predominant form of entertainment, as â€Å"the movies attracted 83 cents of every U. S. dollar spent on recreation† (Ray 26). Its nineties counterpart, with its emphasis on the sensational and the spectacular, on episodic action and generic diversification, is a postmodern cinema entertaining the possibility of multiple signification and the hyperreality of the visual, subject to an increasing commodified experience. As Anne Friedberg puts it, â€Å"today the culture industry takes on different forms: Domestic electronics (fax, modems, cable television) follow the interactive model of dialogic telephone communications. The personal computer turns the home user into a desktop publisher, the microwave turns every cook into an instant gourmet, the Walkman transforms each listener into a radio programmer. Both production and reception have been individualized; the culture industry no longer speaks in a univocal, monolithic voice. 189) This proliferation of entertainment venues offered to the individual points to a general malaise often regarded as the central feature of postmodernism, what Featherstone terms â€Å"the fragmentation and overproduction of culture—the key-feature of consumer culture† (76). As Jameson says, â€Å"in postmodern culture, ‘culture’ itself has become a product in its own right; the market has become a substitute for itself and fully as much a commodity as any of the items it includes within itself† (1991 x). In the â€Å"cultural logics of late capitalism,† Jameson’s code-phrase for postmodernity, what is commodified is not simply the image, which has acquired central role in contemporary culture but lived experience itself. As Guy Debord diagnoses in The Society of the Spectacle, â€Å"everything that was lived directly has moved away into a representation (1983 np). Baudrillard, as Friedberg notes, also talks about â€Å"the same phenomenon—representation of the thing replacing the thing—and extends it into a mise-en- abime of the ‘hyperreal,’ where signs refer only to signs. Hyperreality is not just an inverted relation of sign and signifier, but one of receding reference, a deterrence operation in the signifying chain†(178). A part in this process of the commodification of the sign and the derealization of the real has been played by media technologies, especially electronics, as Vivian Sobchack points out: The postmodern and electronic â€Å"instant† constitutes a form of absolute presence (one abstracted from the continuity that gives meaning to the system past/present/future) and changes the nature of the space it occupies. Without the temporal emphases of historical consciousness and personal history, space becomes abstract, ungrounded, flat—a site for play and display rather than an invested situation in which action â€Å"counts† rather than computes. Such a superficial space can no longer hold the spectator/ user’s interest, but has to stimulate it constantly in the same way a video game does. Its flatness—a function of its lack of temporal thickness and bodily investment—has to attract spectator interest at the surface. In an important sense, electronic space disembodies.

Dementia Care Training for Nurses

Dementia Care Training for Nurses Improving Dementia Care Training for Registered General Nurses and Adult Student Nurses: examining the need, efficacy, content and barriers. This Independent Project aims to explore the efficacy of current provision for Dementia care training for Adult branch Student Nurses and Registered General Nurses (RGN’s). A range of audits and research literature on this area of special interest will be examined to obtain a better picture of the situation with an aim to discover a recommendation for whether more training in this area is needed. The content and provision needs of training will also be explored with barriers to effective care and training critically analysed. Introduction Dementia is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of symptoms caused by certain diseases or conditions associated with decline in a person’s cognitive abilities such as memory, personality changes, impaired reasoning and use of verbal language, which are severe enough to reduce a person’s ability to perform every-day activities (Chater and Hughes 2012). The most common of these diseases is Alzheimer’s reference. Dementia is progressive and incurable, therefore it is vital these people are supported and cared for by nurses who have been trained with the skills and knowledge needed to deliver high quality evidence based care. ADD IN STRONG REFERENCE THAT TRAINING IMPROVES QUALITY EVIDENCE-BASED CARE. There are currently 800,000 people with dementia living in the UK, with these figures expected to rise by 40% over the next 12 years and by 156% over the next 38 years due to an ageing population. Evidence from the Department of Health (2012) shows that 95% of these people are over the age of 65 and are therefore more likely to have complex medical needs. As a result; they spend increased time in acute hospital wards under the care of RGN’s, making training in this area for this group of health professionals a contemporary issue which needs exploration (Department of Health 2012) . The rising number of patients with dementia presents a challenge for all acute hospital trusts and many different health professionals. Such patients experience higher mortality rates and are more likely to have longer lengths of stay than others, they are also more at risk of falls and other incidents whilst in hospital (Cornwell et al 2012). Aside from the cost implications to the NHS when trusts do not get to grips with this challenge, the patients are not getting appropriate care – they are not ‘living well with dementia’ (Department of Health 2009). The National Dementia Strategy set a clear vision that people with dementia and their carers should be helped to live well with dementia, no matter what the stage of their condition or where they are in the health and care system. Through examination of Dementia training efficacy, it is hoped a recommendation will be made to improve the lives of those living with Dementia through changes in Dementia Care training for RGN’s. Following initial exploration of evidence available surrounding Dementia care training, the following issues will be addressed and critically analysed: Why is Dementia Training for RGN’s needed? How can the efficacy of training on Dementia care for RGN’s be improved? What content should be used in Dementia care training? What are the barriers to implementation of Dementia care training? Why is Dementia Training for RGN’s needed? Patients admitted to acute hospital wards with dementia have comparatively poorer outcomes regarding length of stay, mortality and further institutionalism (DH 2009, Alzheimer’s Society 2012). In addition, this group of patients place higher demands for nursing care, are more likely to functionally decline during admission and suffer increased rates of delayed discharge. This can result in permanent decline in health and added costs to NHS trusts (Mukadam and Sampson 2011). Though thought by many to be due to their complex health needs (REFERENCE), The Health Foundation (2011) has suggested a significant reason for these poorer outcomes is lack of professional understanding by RGN’s in providing appropriate care. Improvement in Dementia care is currently a nationwide health initiative reference. National audits over the last 5 years have recommended implementation of dementia services such as dementia lead nurses, standardised assessment and care protocols and compulsory staff training (DH 2009, Harwood et al. 2010, Thompson and Heath 2013, RCP 2013). Yet there are many recent reports of poor and sometimes negligent care suggesting these recommendations have not yet been followed or implemented (Leung and Todd 2010, Francis 2013, RCP 2013). Results from the National Audit of Dementia Care in general hospitals indicated that nurses working on acute wards rated significantly lower adequacy of training than nurses working on care of elderly wards. Other audits such as Counting the Cost report (Alzheimer’s Society 2009) indicated that more than half of nurses had not received any pre or post registered dementia training. Elliot and Adams (2011) further identify the lack of understanding around Dementia, meaning the needs of older people with Dementia are not addressed in many acute hospital settings. As can be seen, the need for specific training in Dementia care for RGN’s is strong. There is evidence to support positive influence on effective care with training. The National Audit of Dementia Care in General Hospitals (NAD 2012) was commissioned by Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership to address the concerns of care for people with dementia (Tadd et al. 2011). These audits aimed to identify hospital’s provision of assessment, care models and staff training. Following the 1st round of audits in 2011 a report by Thompson and Heath concluded that the main barriers to providing good care were lack of understanding of the condition, not enough time to care and failing to communicate with patients. Improvements are not as forthcoming in dementia assessment on admission to acute wards. Results from the 2nd round audit of NAD acknowledge that there had been improvement in implementation of staff training frameworks in hospitals since the 1st round audit and represented an improvement in care as a result (Royal College of Psychiatrists 2013). The 2nd round report highlighted that approximately 75% of hospitals now provide dementia awareness training to nurses, although almost 50% are still failing to provide dementia awareness training as part of induction programmes. The report suggests that further improvement is required in providing better and more consistent staff training, as despite some progress, there appears to be a gap between actual training and written reports (RCP 2013). As a result, the recommendations outlined and analysed in this Independent project may be of some use in raising positive statistics. How can the efficacy of training on Dementia care for RGN’s be improved? It is the evaluation of this evidence which aims to generate key recommendations for provision of Dementia care training. Elliot and Adams (2011) were able to show improvements in needs met where specific education for RGN’s is provided by a Dementia Nurse Specialist (recommendation number 1). This shows the role of the Dementia Nurse Specialist to be vital in improving the efficacy of Dementia training and infiltrating best possible evidence-based care into clinical practice. However, despite this, the minimal numbers of Dementia Nurse Specialists currently practicing has to be identified as a limiting factor. In many trusts and academic institutions, there is no availability for a Dementia Nurse Specialist to provide training, therefore limiting efficacy even when extensive training is to be provided (Knifton et al. 2014). In terms of training content, it is well documented that evidence used should be reliable and credibly underpin clinical practice as this promotes evidence –based practice and better health outcomes (Jeffs et al. 2013). Evidence based practice is vital in all nurses’ roles (REFERENCE NMC CODE). REFERENCE suggests up to date qualitative and quantitative research is the only knowledge and information base which should be used to allow best care to be provided, hence placing important value of increased use of evidence based research in training sessions. Currently, Moyle et al. (2008) suggests the lack of research used to underpin Dementia training for RGN’s is limiting ability to not only provide best care but also identify those living with Dementia (Chang et al. 2009) RECOMMENDATION 2. However, barriers to evidence based care remain even when high quality evidence is used to support training. Smith-Strom and Nortvedt (2008) have identified that RGN’s ofte n find evidence difficult to interpret and evaluate while Oermann (2009) suggests very little of the content is retained to be implemented into practice. This suggests RGN’s may also need training on evidence based practice and processing research (REFERENCE). Gerrish (2008) suggested the knowledge and skill of the individual nurse prior to receiving specific training heavily influenced their ability to improve their practice following. This suggests multiple training sessions on Dementia may be needed before practice can be changed and improved (REFERENCE). RECOMMENDATION 3. What content should be used in Dementia care training? Tadd et al. (2011) explain that one reason for increased functional decline is that care of patients on acute wards is prioritised from the perspective of the medical condition for which they have been admitted, often overlooking their mental health condition. Most acute wards follow rigid, task driven routines such as drug rounds, meal times and washing, while staff lack the necessary skills required to provide proficient dignified care. This form of nursing can cause increased anxiety and delirium resulting in poorer outcomes for individuals (Tadd et al. 2011, Calnan et al. 2013). Alzheimer’s Society (2009) report that patients admitted to acute hospital wards for longer periods are more likely to suffer from permanent worsened effects of dementia and physical health. They are more likely to receive prescribed antipsychotic drugs and to be discharged to residential care rather than their home (Thompson and Heath 2013). Leung and Todd (2010) acknowledge that specialist services do exist in some trusts and that training in managing behaviour, using life stories and implementing dementia care mapping are all good techniques that can help nurses to improve quality care. Dementia care mapping is an observational method of recording interactions that take place between individuals and nurses over a period of time (Ervin and Koschel 2012). This enables evaluation of what works and doesn’t work for patients, it is a useful way of tailoring person-centred care to help staff understand the experience of dementia from the patient’s perspective while rating quality of care given (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and Social Institute for Care Excellence 2007) (NICE-SCIE). Alzheimer’s Society (2013) suggest that nurses must challenge their task driven ward environment and provide a more flexible approach providing care from the patient’s perspective as this is achievable and beneficial to patients. Leung and Todd (2010) reported that most nurses have received little or no training and are ill equipped to deal with the many challenges that face both patients and nurses. Additionally NICE (2013) state that nurses suggest dementia education programmes should include identifying signs and symptoms, communication and person-centred care methods, treatment to include medicine administration and how to monitor side effects, particular emphasis was placed on requirement to assess pan. Nurses also suggested that learning about the impact of dementia on the individual and managing challenging behaviour would be useful. Dementia training is not a compulsory element of the pre-registered nursing curriculum although this has been recommended to the Nu rsing and Midwifery Council (NMC) by several national organisations. (NICE-SCIE 2007, Alzheimer’s Association 2009, All-party Parliamentary Group on Dementia 2012, Higher Education for Dementia Network 2014 (HEDN)). The NHS Confederation (2010) recognise that providing dementia training to staff could benefit hospital trusts in several ways. These include nurses being equipped to identify those with dementia, therefore being able to implement care pathways appropriate to patients. Effective management of patients with dementia helps avoid disorientation and anxiousness which could reduce the amount of time spent attending to challenging behaviour and allow staff more time to care for all patients on an acute ward. What are the barriers to implementation of Dementia care training? Even when effective dementia training has been provided, barriers to good quality evidence-based care remain and it is important these do not go unnoticed. Identification and knowledge of these barriers alone can minimise their limiting factor (reference). Acute hospital settings pose many challenges to both patients with dementia and the nurses caring for them. Yet Harwood et al. (2011) report that there is little evidence of research aimed at investigating these challenges and the provision of detailed policies on how to deal with them. Patients with dementia are more likely to find an unfamiliar environment unsettling, frightening and confusing due to the nature of impaired cognitive ability (Moyle et al. 2008). This accounts for literature suggesting that an acute ward environment comprised of identical doorways and bed spaces causes added confusion to patients (Reference). This often creates increased disorientation, aggression or withdrawal (Leung and Todd, Thompson and Heath 2 013). This further challenges the nurse’s role in maintaining nutritional, personal hygiene and drug administration tasks as individuals can no longer respond to familiar faces, environment and daily routines (Tadd et al. 2011). Barriers Overcoming the barriers The government accepts improvements are needed and is pinning hopes on the  £3.8 billion Better Care Fund, which will was launched in April 2015. The pot has been earmarked for joint projects between the NHS and local government to encourage more integrated care. STUDENT NURSES 2015 report: Dementia education to bestandardised at degree level some nursing degrees offer only three hours of dementia education throughout the whole three-year course. How this should change following the dementia core skills framework, but it doesn’t state how many hours students will be required to undertake. Student nurse attitudes towards working with the elderly Future plans for RGN’s HEE 2013 Mandate targets. – ensure that tools and training opportunities in dementia are available to all staff by the end of 2018. Current training requierments of RGN’s in relation to Dementia training References Department of Health (2009) Living well with dementia: a national dementia strategy. The Stationery Office, London. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence/Social Care Institute for Excellence guideline (2006) Dementia: supporting people with dementia and their carers in health and social care. NICE/SCIE, London.

Destry Rides Again, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, and the Fall of the Ho

Destry Rides Again, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, and the Fall of the Hollywood Studio System Thomas Schatz cites the 1950’s as the inevitable end of the Hollywood film studio system, with the signs appearing as early as the height of the second World War (472). However, the seeds of discontent and disintegration within the system were apparent as soon as the late 1930’s, exemplified in such films as Destry Rides Again (1939, George Marshall) and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939, Frank Capra). The production of these two films and the paths down which they led their star (James Stewart), directors (at least Frank Capra), and studios (Universal and Columbia, respectively) are evidence of the decline of the studio system. The haphazard production of Destry Rides Again and its subsequent success (financially, but not as an enduring classic film) are indicative of a system eating itself alive: so intent on the production of film after film made with almost the same crews and casts that lasting meaning had been all but completely forgotten in favor of financial suc cess and power within the system. This also demonstrates the decline of the fascist executive order of the studios in favor of the hard work and devotion of those directly involved on the film set as well as the increasingly important role of the talent agent as the intermediary between the talent and the studios. Frank Capra’s eventually freelance auteurship, in the wake of David O. Selznick and his â€Å"independent† film productions, particularly evident in the production of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, was a notable indicator of the studios’ impending loss of power (Schatz 407). These and other independent and freelance artists (such as Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang)... ...gton, 11 October 1939†. Variety: A Sixteen Volume Set. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1983 Nachbar, Jack (ed). Focus on the Western. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1974: 132 Newman, Kim. Wild West Movies or How the West was Found, Won, Lost, Lied About, Filmed and Forgotten. London: Bloomsbury. 1990: 135 Nugent, Frank S. â€Å"Destry Rides Again, 2 December 1939†. The New York Times Film Reviews. New York: The New York Times and Arno Press. 1970 Nugent, Frank S. â€Å"Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, 20 October 1939†. The New York Times Film Reviews. New York: The New York Times and Arno Press. 1970 Schatz, Thomas. The Genius of the System. New York: Metropolitan Books. 1988: 235-251 Wright, William. Six Guns and Society: A Structural Study of the Western. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. 1975: 48