Midlands Of England Research Articles

Postpartum care of women with gestational diabetes: survey of healthcare professionals

ObjectiveTo assess the knowledge and practices of healthcare professionals on the postpartum care of women with gestational diabetes. Study designWe surveyed 106 healthcare professionals including obstetricians, diabetologists, general practitioners and midwives in East London and West Midlands in England (September 2014). The questionnaire assessed postpartum screening practices, care provision, future risk and strategies to prevent diabetes in women with gestational diabetes. ResultsThe response rate was 87% (92/106). Nearly all respondents offered advice on diet (99%; CI 95%, 100%) and exercise (92%; CI 85%, 97%) postnatally in women with diagnosis of gestational diabetes. The preferred screening time for diabetes was 6 weeks to 3 months postpartum (76%; CI 66%, 85%). Overall, oral glucose tolerance test was the preferred test (57%; CI 46%, 67%), although general practitioners preferred fasting glucose (50%; CI 33%, 67%) and glycated hemoglobin (47%; CI 30%, 64%). Most midwives (81%, 17/21) and obstetricians (52%, 11/21) either underestimated or were unsure of the future risk of diabetes. There was lack of consensus on responsibility for immediate postpartum screening. ConclusionThe survey highlights the need for improved awareness of future risk of diabetes in women with gestational diabetes, consensus on optimal postpartum screening and identification of the main healthcare provider responsible for further management. This is particularly important for areas of social deprivation.

‘We are the boys from the Black Country’! (Re)Imagining local, regional and spectator identities through fandom at Walsall Football Club

The Black Country, a region that is only loosely defined geographically, is an area located in the West Midlands of England, which its inhabitants claim holds a distinct geographical and cultural personality. However, despite the territory's perceived uniqueness, popular imaginations of England have often overlooked the Black Country's historical and socio-cultural individuality. Therefore, given those working in a number of disciplines have recognised local football spectator communities to be significant cultural arenas, through which localism is performed and remade, this article explores the role of fandom in imagining, preserving and/or contesting notions of ‘Black Countryness’. Utilising semi-structured interviews, netnography and participant observation, as key methodological techniques, this study explores how local-spectator communities at Walsall Football Club (one of three professional football teams based in the Black Country) continually (re)negotiate a collective sense of local and regional identity. By adopting a critical approach, guided by Hall's notion of ‘cultural identity’, this research, in line with other similar studies, highlights the significant role football fandom plays in imbuing particular locales with meaning. However, more importantly, by understanding football fandom is emergent from complex, productive and interconnected cultural processes, this article is also critical of local football spectator communities and their exclusionary, as well as inclusionary, practices and customs.

The Quaternary of the River Trent: critical evidence for glaciation, river development and land uplift within and close to the limits of lowland glaciation in north Midland England

This Context Paper examines the findings of the Trent Valley Palaeolithic Project (TVPP) which have been published over the period 2010–2015 as a substantial book and a number of research and review papers. The findings of this project are significant for: (i) the glacial history of lowland England, with a case being made for a MIS 8 glaciation; (ii) understanding the history of the drainage of the region with identification of change from the pre-glacial Ancaster and Bytham rivers to the newly formed River Trent, which developed across the landscape glaciated during MIS 12 and (iii) presenting a case for the importance of ice-, water- and rock-loading and unloading upon the development of river systems over late Middle and Late Quaternary time. These three topics are placed in a wider context with respect to regional patterns of glacial and Quaternary history of Britain and northern Europe and some concepts underpinning the subjects.

Social Relationships and Relationships in Context: Post‐Accession Poles in Southampton

AbstractIn this article, we examine post‐accession Poles' shifting identity practices through the lens of their attitudes to other Poles in a high‐density post‐accession Polish migration destination, namely the city of Southampton on England's south coast. We examine the impact of human capital (in this instance, we will focus on their ability to speak English) and the extent of their social capital (focusing on the restrictions based on their communicative competence with non‐Polish groups and their particular trust issues associated with compatriots). We contextualise our findings in other research on post‐accession Poles in London, Glasgow, the Midlands of England, the North of England, the Netherlands, Norway, and Brussels, thus drawing together common themes from a wide body of evidence. Through examining biographical data focusing on the everyday lives of our participants, we were able to explore the impact of context on their presentation of their identities and relational practices. By so doing, we exposed the interplay of a range of intersecting factors that result in many of our participants leading restrictive and restricted lives. © 2015 The Authors Population, Space and Place Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Seropositivity to Toxoplasma infection in sheep samples submitted to Animal and Plant Health Agency laboratories between 2005 and 2012

Ovine serum samples submitted to Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) (formerly the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency) – Weybridge regional laboratories in England and Wales for diagnostic and...

Standing in the Shadow of Giants

This paper investigates contemporary independent publishing in the UK. It explores whether independent publishers based outside London believe they can: compete in the global publishing environment; help to promote and preserve regional cultures and identities; and maintain diversity in cultural output. It also examines how independent presses based outside of London see themselves situated in the national and international publishing arena. Small publishers in the North and Midlands of England are used as case studies in this research because they constitute small publishing communities that exist alongside the larger, dominant publishing industry in London. Although the foci of the empirical research are the industries in the North and Midlands of England, the paper is contextualized within national publishing discourse.

Using habitus and field to explore Access to Higher Education students' learning identities

Despite the diversification of the student population in higher education, there has been little empirical research on the impact of Access to Higher Education (AHE) courses, on mature students' learning identities, and of the changes in higher education policy on their chances to participate. Using data from a study examining AHE students' learning transitions at three further education colleges in the East Midlands in England, we employ Bourdieu's concept of habitus and the complexities of the relations between habitus and field to understand how AHE students experience and conceptualise their positions as they (re)engage in formal learning. The article will draw on the study's findings to show how the AHE students participate in these fields and the learner identities that emerge. For the purposes of the article three themes are discussed. These relate to the AHE students' reticence towards learning and difficult educational beginnings; transforming learner identities and learning to become a learner. It will argue that when immersed in new fields, AHE students can develop strategies and nuanced understandings of their previous experiences, social background and different learning cultures and contexts to inform the development of their learner identities. By doing this article shows how Bourdieu's ideas of habitus and field can be used to critically evaluate the effects of this interplay on mature learners' dis/positions and activities within their AHE course and their career decision-making.

Language perception in the East Midlands in England

Previous research by the author has examined the concept of identity in the East Midlands and how this can be relatively problematic in the region (Braber, 2014). This paper aims to extend this topic by investigating views of young people living in the East Midlands using a folk linguistic approach. Preston (1989, 1999b) claims that perceptual dialectology looks at non-linguists' beliefs and perceptions about the similarities of their own speech to, and differences from, the speech of others. This involves examining where participants believe dialect areas to be and what the characteristics of local speech are. This paper examines dialect identification and investigates the abilities of a sample group of adolescents to place correctly local and regional varieties of English.

Exploring Text and Objects: Escheators’ Inventories and Material Culture in Medieval English Rural Households

A study was undertaken to assess the potential of the integrated analysis of metalwork excavated from medieval (late 13th–16th-century) rural settlements in the midlands of England and inventories (dating from c 1370–c 1440) drawn from the royal escheators’ records for the same region. The study aimed to explore the value and meaning of objects to the non-elite members of rural communities and focussed on three classes of artefact: metal vessels, tools and dress accessories. The analysis investigates medieval value systems by exploring evidence for aspiration, recycling and differences between town and country.

The Lesson Observation On-line (Evidence Portfolio) Platform

At a time when teacher training is being moved to school-based programmes it is important to engage in a research-informed dialogue about creating more distinctive, and cost-effective 21st century models of teacher training. Three years ago I began feasibility field testing the Lesson Observation On-line (Evidence Portfolio) Platform [LOOP] concept (Cooper, 2012). Student-teachers from a university in the Midlands of England were video recorded, with their schools’ permissions, teaching mathematics’ lessons during their second period of teaching experience. The video recorded lessons together with the trainees’ lesson plans, accompanying lesson resources, lesson self-evaluations and snapshots of tangible, written pupil outputs captured from three representative pupils were subsequently collated in each individual teacher’s evidence portfolio. The trainees’ lesson observation feedback reports by their university tutors and school-based mentors were also included in the lesson evidence portfolios. These provided trainees with better, and richer, sources of detailed evidence about their teaching performances during their second periods of teaching experience than had previously been available. Since this paper was initially drafted a Lesson Observation On-line Platform [LOOP Australia] project has been developed and Seed funded by the Australian Office for Learning and Teaching in 2014/5.

College re-culturing, marketisation and knowledge: the meaning of incorporation

The further education (FE) sector in England has experienced two decades of marketisation. This article takes as its focus the first five years of incorporation (1993–1998) for one case study college in a city (‘Coppleton’) in the West Midlands of England, five years that were dominated by a contract dispute. Data from interviews with trade unionists active in Coppleton College (anonymised name) and from a trade union archive are set against selected official College documents in a genealogical enquiry into the college's corporate identity as an educational institution and employer during this time. This article looks behind the ‘legibility’ of the incorporated college and its knowledge production practices and focuses on excluded narratives, specifically the experiences of union activists caught up in a new era of industrial relations. In analysing the data, theories of New Public Management and marketisation reveal that Coppleton College has features that make it culturally distinct from its unincorporated forebear. The corporation as an institutional model – it is argued – brought with it features including institutional self-interest, an authoritarian culture, the erosion of trust, and the stifling of dissent as part of an incorporated view of knowledge production that worked against staff and the public interest.

‘It’s not what it looks like. I’m Santa’: Connecting Community through Film

The lived experiences of young people are becoming increasingly marginalised within the narrowly defined curricula of neoliberal contexts. Many young people are also cast within the media according to deficit discourses of youth, which contributes to the fragmentation of communities and the limitation of interaction between generations. This article describes a film project in which young people living in an ex-mining community in the Midlands of England worked in and with their community to create a representation of where they live. As part of the process, the young filmmakers did more than connect to other people’s memories as repositories of information; both as process and as product, their film can be seen to connect shared narratives of people and place, across time and space. We argue that this project offers a timely opportunity to reflect upon the ways in which we understand learning in and out of English classrooms.

Nursing Under the Old Poor Law in Midland and Eastern England 1780-1834.

This article uses data drawn from the overseers' accounts and supporting documentation in thirty-six parishes spread over four English counties, to answer three basic questions. First, what was the character, extent, structure, range of activities, and remuneration of the nursing labor force under the Old Poor Law between the late eighteenth century and the implementation of the New Poor Law in the 1830s? Second, were there regional and intra-regional differences in the scale and nature of spending on nursing care for the sick poor? Third, how might one explain such differences? The article suggests that nursing became an increasingly important category of spending for the poor law from the later eighteenth century, but that there were significant variations within and (particularly) between English counties in parochial attitudes toward the provision of nursing for the sick poor. These variations can be explained by applying a matrix of explanatory variables ranging from the minor (differences in how parishes defined "nursing") through to the major (long-standing cultural attitudes toward the responsibility of parishioners to their sick compatriots and the ingrained expectations of the sick poor). The article also throws new light on the hidden aspects of female labor force participation, pointing to the development of professional nursing networks long before the later nineteenth century.

Transforming marginalised adult learners’ views of themselves: Access to Higher Education courses in England

Adult learners on Access to Higher Education courses struggled with institutional and social structures to attend their courses, but transformed their identities as learners through them. Although asymmetrical power relationships dominated the intentional learning communities of their courses, their work was facilitated by collaborative cultures and supportive tutors, and students gained the confidence to construct their own emergent communities of practice for learning. The students attended seven further education colleges in the East Midlands of England. Data were collected by mixed methods within a social constructivist framework from students and their tutors.

Bringing groundwater models to LIFE: a new way to assess water resource management options

If management of water resources is to fully take into account the requirements of the environment, it will benefit from quantitative predictions of the ecological effects of river flow alterations. A significant relationship between flow reductions caused by groundwater abstraction and ecological conditions (as measured by relevant biotic indices) has been shown in streams in the midlands of England. In this article, we combine this relationship with hydrological indices derived from calibrated regional groundwater models to assess river reaches that are likely to be ecologically impacted by abstraction and might consequently be at risk of failing to meet EC Water Framework Directive standards. We demonstrate the application of this method within the framework of the Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration (ELOHA) approach to making water resource decisions. We provide examples of how this approach can be used to assess the implications of different groundwater abstraction scenarios for river water bodies.Editor D. Koutsoyiannis; Guest editor M. AcremanCitation Streetly, M.J., Bradley, D.C., Streetly, H.R., Young, C., Cadman D., and Banham, A., 2014. Bringing groundwater models to LIFE: a new way to assess water resource management options. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 59 (3–4), 578–593.

Living and learning as an international postgraduate student at a Midlands university

This paper investigates the views of 20 full-time international postgraduate students, many of whom were Chinese, on living, learning and becoming successful students at one university in a multicultural city in the Midlands of England. The qualitative study built on findings from the International Students’ Barometer (ISB) survey for the university, in that it seeks to understand how students’ experience of context (living) interacted with their experience of learning in building their identities as successful learners. Student participants were sampled opportunistically within a purposive framework. Data was collected through audio-recorded individual semi-structured interviews, using as a stimulus participant-constructed concept maps of their perceptions of learning in the university and living in the city. Interview data were transcribed and analysed thematically. The main findings showed that participants enjoyed living in a city with an international culture, although some found it strange initially because they encountered different styles of life and food, albeit including some that they enjoyed at home. They welcomed studying at a university with high international prestige, a wide range of excellent facilities and generally approachable tutors but were shocked by having to undertake unfamiliar styles of independent learning with brief teaching hours. They perceived culture shock as transitional, which declined as they made friends, often with co-linguists, and became familiar with life in the city, work in the university and the extensive support of tutors.

Going “paperless” in an English National Health Service (NHS) breast cancer screening service: The intriduction of fully digital mammography

Objective: To test the feasibility of a fully paperless system, termed “paperlite” in a UK breast screening service. To demonstrate in NHS practice, how workload and workflow could be improved by moving to a paperless system and discovering what impact this has upon the complexity within the service. Setting: Warwickshire, Solihull and Coventry Breast Screening Service in the West Midlands of England. Methods: Quality improvement methodologies were employed, including value stream mapping, task analysis and a time-and-motion study. Results: The screening centred screened approximately 50,000 women per year. If they were to implement a paperless system, the administrative workload would decrease. The time saving per batch of screens, which could be achieved by moving to the paperless system ranged from 19 to 56 minutes (mean = 36 minutes). When calculated by batch the mean time saving per woman screened by moving to the paperless system was 42 seconds. This equates to 583 hours of administrative work per year in a centre screening 50,000 women. Conclusions: The paperless system has many benefits compared to the original system in terms of reductions in waste, time and cost. The simplification and standardisation of the process resulted in fewer tasks and interfaces where errors could occur, hence inadvertently improving patient safety. The limitation of the work is the heavy reliance on technology, live interfacing with computer databases and software stability is necessary for a paperless system to be used in NHS practice.

Midwives' beliefs and concerns about telephone conversations with women in early labour

Objectiveto explore midwives' concerns, experiences and perceptions of the purpose of telephone contacts with women in early labour. Designa qualitative design based on interpretive phenomenology. Settingtwo Maternity Units in the Midlands of England. Participantsthree focus groups of labour ward midwife co-ordinators and labour ward midwives and nine in-depth interviews of midwives, obstetricians and labour ward receptionists. Findingsthe principal finding was that midwives are trying to reconcile gatekeeping of labour wards with individual support for women and these two aspects are often in conflict. Women experiencing prolonged or painful early labour often expect to be admitted to labour wards whereas midwives operate from a belief that women should only be accepted onto labour ward in active labour. They hold this view because labour wards are busy places and being admitted early contributes to unnecessary medical intervention. Key conclusionsbecause midwives are trying to reconcile the two conflicting priorities of responding to women's needs and protecting the labour ward from inappropriate admissions, the potential always exists for women's needs to be ‘not heard’ or marginalised. Implications for practicethe primary recommendation is that early labour telephone triage should be a discrete service, staffed by midwives who have been trained for this service, working independently of labour ward workloads.

The Medieval Peasant House in Midland England. By Nat Alcock and Dan Miles, with contributions by John Chenevix Trench†, Christopher Currie, Chris Dyer, Bob Laxton† and Cliff Litton. 280mm. Pp x+326, many figs, tables and maps, some col, Cd-Rom. Oxford: Oxbow, 2013. isbn9781842175064. £55 (hbk).

The Medieval Peasant House in Midland England. By Nat Alcock and Dan Miles, with contributions by John Chenevix Trench†, Christopher Currie, Chris Dyer, Bob Laxton† and Cliff Litton. 280mm. Pp x+326, many figs, tables and maps, some col, Cd-Rom. Oxford: Oxbow, 2013. isbn9781842175064. £55 (hbk). - Volume 93

Group supervision: supporting practitioners in their work with children and families in Children’s Centres

This article discusses how group supervision can be used to support the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) of those working with children and families in early years provision in England. It is based on research conducted in 2008 with a cluster of four Children’s Centres in the West Midlands in England, UK. The research evaluated group supervision with 12 Family Support Workers (FSWs) and three managers, using Realistic Evaluation (Pawson and Tilley 1997) as the methodological approach. The research identified key mechanisms within the group supervision process: the professional contract, group working agreement, facilitation and size of the group. In addition, the research identified key features of the context, namely management support and group dynamics. This article will focus on the key mechanisms within the group supervision process, and the key features of the context, whilst providing a brief overview of the outcomes.