Learning Disability Liaison Nurses have been shown to improve hospital experiences and this is an emerging role in Ireland. This research qualitatively explored the impact of a Clinical Nurse Specialist Acute Hospital Liaison from the perspective of staff in an intellectual disability community organisation. Participants identified significant…

This article explores the experiences of the use of the "Regional Health and Social Care Hospital Passport" ("Regional Hospital Passport") in Northern Ireland from the perspectives of adults with intellectual disabilities, family carers and health professionals. From semi-structured interviews three themes emerged: usefulness;…

Background: Supporting psychosocial well-being in aphasia is necessarily person-centred, interdisciplinary and coordinated. Shortcomings in such support are described in Ireland and elsewhere. Speech and language therapists (SLTs) are integral; and describing current practice and barriers they experience is important for enhancing service…

This account of practice discusses how we use action learning (AL) sets as part of the supervision process for quality improvement (QI) projects in healthcare. Reflecting on the synergies between QI and AL reveals that the questioning approach of both links closely with the Calgary Cambridge Communication model, taught in medicine, to guide…

Literature pertaining to open disclosure predominantly refers to acute care settings; this is the case in, for example, the UK, Republic of Ireland, Australia, Korea and the USA. There is, however, a dearth of literature regarding open disclosure related to people with intellectual disabilities. A practice example of open disclosure is presented…

Digital education is intertwined with matters of global economics, geopolitics, as well as ongoing changes in what counts as knowledge, skills and learning. We have witnessed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic how technology has been embraced within education from online classes to innovative mobile learning approaches and evaluating humanoid robots…

Incentivising has shown to improve participation in clinical trials. However, ethical concerns suggest that incentives may be coercive, obscure trial risks and encourage individuals to enrol in clinical trials for the wrong reasons. The aim of our study was to develop and pilot a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to explore and identify preferences…

Pregnancy may pose a number of physical and healthcare-related challenges for autistic people, who experience differences in sensory processing and can face barriers to accessing healthcare. However, little research has explored autistic pregnancy experiences. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 autistic and 21 non-autistic women…

The teaching of sick children in hospital is an often overlooked aspect of Ireland's national education system. Prior to the 1970s, there was hardly any formal structure in place for this type of schooling in the country, despite the fact that many children could be inpatients for weeks or months at a time. In 1980, a report, published by the…

Over the last twenty years, medical discourse has attracted a great deal of scholarly research. Language in healthcare settings has been more generally analysed through genres--whether in terms of expert-to-expert or expert-to-lay communication--whereas more specific aspects include the study of discourse strategies behind the expression of…

Background: Diabetes self-management education (DSME) is generally considered to be a key determinant of the treatment outcomes and related costs of diabetes mellitus. While DSME programmes generally have positive outcomes, their effects may depend on certain factors, such as the type of programmes provided and patients' level of health literacy…

Internationally the relocation of people with intellectual disability from institutions has brought significant gains to their quality of life. This study contrasted three groups of persons in Ireland who moved either to personalized arrangements (n = 29) or to community group homes (n = 31) with those who remained in congregated settings awaiting…

The purpose of this article is to present and discuss the reported impact of a fully problem-based learning (PBL) master's program on the way graduates worked with patients and colleagues in Ireland. These graduates had completed a sixteen-month fully PBL master's in sonography while concurrently working in clinical practice. Semi-structured…

Research on the routines of doctor-patient consultations has been conducted in language and culture concordant dyads and in dyads where either doctor or patient uses a foreign language; yet there is an absence of scholarly engagement with consultations where both participants are using a foreign language. In seeking to address this gap, this…

Handover of patient care is a time of particular risk and it is important that accurate and relevant information is clearly communicated. The hospital discharge letter is an important part of handover. However, the quality of hospital discharge letters is variable and letters frequently omit important information. The Cork Letter-Writing…