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The article discusses several obstacles in compensation claims by participants who are harmed in research and informs about two different insurance systems that may be available to compensate participants. Information regarding sponsors who provide compensation is also included. It informs about the no-fault compensation scheme through which research participants can claim compensation.

The objective of the study was to establish the arrangements for provision of general practitioner (GP), nursing advice, chiropody, physiotherapy and speech and language services to nursing homes and to establish the charging policies for those services. To this end a telephone survey of the managers of the 51 nursing homes registered with one English health authority, Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth Health Authority, was undertaken. Forty-nine homes (96%) with 1541 residents responded. Twenty per cent of homes had no regular GP visits and half the homes had no planned medication reviews. One in five homes (27% of residents) had access to all health-care services. Eight homes (10% of residents) did not have access to therapy services or nursing advice. Thirty-three homes used private or both private and NHS chiropody services and 16 homes used the NHS service only. Seventeen homes used private or both private and NHS physiotherapy services with 10 homes receiving a regular private service. Twenty homes used the NHS service and 12 homes (15% of residents) had used no physiotherapy service. None used private speech and language services. Twenty-four of the 33 homes using private chiropody charged extra for this service compared with two of 10 homes using regular private physiotherapy. The findings suggest that there are inequalities in access to health care services in nursing homes. Moreover, there has been a deterioration in access to and levels of provision of NHS nursing and physiotherapy services since the national survey undertaken by the Office Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) in Great Britain in the mid-1980s. The new regulatory framework for older people must include systems for monitoring the provision of health services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the importance of different information sources in changing clinical practice in Great Britain. Involvement of consultants and general practitioners in survey; Difficulty of access to evidence-based literature; Implications of information source multiplicity for the dissemination of evidence.

As part of the 1989 NHS Review, the government made participation in audit compulsory for the medical profession. Prior to this time, medical audit had been fragmented, implemented by "top-down" initiatives promoted by professional bodies as well as by localized "bottom-up" exercises undertaken by committed individuals. The paper uses evidence gained from four case studies of the implementation of medical audit in acute hospitals post 1989, to argue that during the early stages of policy implementation individualistic tendencies hate, to some extent inadvertently, been given their head. This has not resulted in stronger external management of medical activities, as the government appeared initially to intend, but rather in locally determined medical audit activity, focused on technical process and medical management. However examining medical audit in the wider context of the total package of NHS reforms and of concurrent changes in medical management, suggests that medical interests, and the individualism that is characteristic of medical organization, will become diluted and less segregated in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]