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Biomedical subjects

Celia Davies

Publications and source records attributed to Celia Davies.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2004

Political leadership and the politics of nursing.

This article provides a critical examination of the concept of political leadership as it has recently developed in the field of nursing, arguing that despite its undoubted usefulness, there are important issues that it obscures. Using five guiding questions, it is proposed that a focus on political leadership is inward-looking and individualizing. It encourages a view of the profession as immature and it emphasizes separation instead of alliance formation. An alternative perspective starting from an assumption that nursing operates in a position of cultural and structural disadvantage is proposed. A close analysis of the government's strategy for nursing in England confirms the continuing cultural ambiguity that surrounds nursing. This enables a number of questions to be posed concerning where nursing fits in relation to current health policy on workforce change and raises doubts about just how far the historical neglect of nursing in policy arenas has been overcome.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed2004

Regulating the health care workforce: next steps for research.

This article explores the recent ferment surrounding professional self-regulation in medicine and other health professions. It reviews the academic literature and sets out an agenda for research. The first section considers definitions, acknowledging the particularly complex regulatory maze in UK health care at present, in which professional self-regulation is only one part. The second section reviews academic writing, currently dispersed among the disciplines. 'The logic of light touch regulation', a feature of the 19th century establishment of the General Medical Council, can perhaps shed light on present debates. Alongside the intense political spotlight on regulation in the wake of the Bristol case, consumer-led research and consumer pressure to rethink the principles of regulation has emerged. This is examined in the third section. Finally, themes for research are advanced. First, there is a need to explore the changing relationship between the state and professions and implications, not only for the professions but for health care more broadly. Second, calls for a new professionalism need to be given clearer content. Third, the moves towards more lay involvement in regulatory bodies need study. Fourth, questions of human rights and professional registers must be explored. Fundamental questions of what professional self-regulation can hope to achieve and where it fits in relation to government ambitions as a whole, remain unresolved. Alongside the work programme of the new overarching regulator, there may well be scope for a new style of public enquiry covering the whole territory of regulation.

Health Personnel↗
PubMed2003

Some of our concepts are missing: reflections on the absence of a sociology of organisations in Sociology of Health and Illness.

The task of examining just how the concept of 'organisations' has fared in Sociology of Health and Illness in its first 25 years is in some ways unrewarding. The answer has to be -'not at all well'. But why is this and does it matter? Part one of this paper considers what research on health care organisations was being conducted in the early years of the Journal and why that work was not viewed with favour by sociologists. Part two examines the growing gulf between those who saw themselves principally as responding to the call for a sociology of health and illness informed by broader sociological theory, and those who regarded themselves more as analysts of health policy and practice. Postmodernism, curiously, has begun to open up something of a route back. Just what might be done to create a closer rapprochement between those calling for theory and those wanting to address some of the day to day challenges of the delivery and experience of health care in the 21st century are topics for the final section.

Bibliometrics↗