This article reports the preliminary results of a small study into the changing expectations of newly migrated Filipino nurses at a London hospital. The aim was to identify initial expectations and experiences. Focus group interviews were conducted with two groups of nurses shortly after their arrival. Career prospects and salaries were key factors influencing the decision to come to the UK. Differences emerged between the nurses' expectations of the nursing role and their actual experience on the wards. Adjusting to the new system of health care proved stressful but was helped by the provision of support services. Factors that may promote successful adaptation and retention included equal opportunities with respect to training and promotion and the use of culturally sensitive orientation programmes. Strategies to reduce social isolation may also be important. The results will be used to inform the trust's retention strategy and will also be of interest to other NHS trusts recruiting Filipino nurses and nurses from other countries.

Specialist community-based services for adults with PD are able to engage most of those that are referred to them, but further efforts need to be made to find ways to engage younger people and men with PD.

Objectives: To establish older women's (≥75 years) information preferences regarding 2 breast cancer treatment options: surgery plus adjuvant endocrine therapy versus primary endocrine therapy. To quantify women's preferences for the mode of information presentation and decision-making (DM) style.Methods: This was a UK multicentre survey of women, ≥75 years, who had been offered a choice between PET and surgery at diagnosis of breast cancer. A questionnaire was developed including 2 validated scales of decision regret and DM preferences.Results: Questionnaires were sent to 247 women, and 101 were returned (response rate 41%). The median age of participants was 82 (range 75 to 99), with 58 having had surgery and 37 having PET. Practical details about the impact, safety, and efficacy of treatment were of most interest to participants. Of least interest were cosmetic outcomes after surgery. Information provided verbally by doctors and nurses, supported by booklets, was preferred. There was little interest in technology-based sources of information. There was equal preference for a patient-or doctor-centred DM style and lower preference for a shared DM style. The majority (74%) experienced their preferred DM style. Levels of decision regret were low (15.73, scale 0-100).Conclusions: Women strongly preferred face to face information. Written formats were also helpful but not computer-based resources. Information that was found helpful to women in the DM process was identified. The study demonstrates many women achieved their preferred DM style, with a preference for involvement, and expressed low levels of decision regret.

Very little is known about the online habits of people labelled with intellectual disability. What little information there is focuses more on demographic descriptors rather than any analyses of issues specific to that group. Hence the vast majority of the literature is firmly focused on more generic issues as they affect the general population. Some very few disability dedicated studies, however, have examined homepages maintained by individuals who live with Down syndrome. Here at least is evidence of a field of inquiry that recognises there may be particular aspects of web based communications that deserve special interest. The dynamics of web based communications are fast moving and the relatively static homepage has subsequently given way to Web 2.0 technologies. Here the recent and exponential increase in the popularity of blogging as a means of mass communication has attracted much comment in both popular and specialist quarters. Its ease of use and near universal availability has prompted massive sociological inquiry. But again the profile of people living with intellectual disability is absent from the debate. Our study reports on a project in which adults with intellectual disability were assisted to access the web in general, and the ‘blogosphere’ in particular. Our focus is on the means and methods by which the participants were able to manage their off and online identities. We look at the language employed, the layouts used and the way the online messages and postings reflected or distorted the actual lived experiences of these proto-bloggers. Notions of authorship and audience also contribute to the debate as these issues raise questions about sense of self, disability as a cultural construct and our ability to negotiate the increasingly important virtual world of the web.

The concept of social capital, the socially constructed category of intellectual disability and the social practice of blogging may appear initially to be unconnected. In this study we report on an attempt to link the three as we examine the consequences of giving a group of people with intellectual disability supported access to the Internet and specifically to that section of cyberspace known as the ;blogosphere'. Using the Social Capital Question Bank as a framework, we interrogate the data in an attempt to discover whether the qualities associated with successful inclusion within society might be available via the blogging community. Along the way we touch on issues related to policy, daily life and who or what counts as a friend.