The Manchester Color Wheel: validation in secondary school pupils.

BACKGROUND: As part of our research programme into facilitating improved ways of communicating with patients, especially about more sensitive clinical issues, we have been investigating whether there are any non-verbal methods that might aid this process. One such approach is to ask patients to choose a color in response to a particular question, for instance about health or psychological status, and for this purpose we developed the Manchester Color Wheel (MCW). This instrument consists of positive, neutral and negative colors and its validation in normal adults and those with anxiety or depression showed that it is responsive to change and reproducible. It also has the capacity to identify a positive frame of mind. We concluded that it might be a particularly useful instrument in adolescents and therefore this study aimed to validate it in a secondary school. METHODS: 620 pupils (aged 11-17 years, mean age 14.0 years, 298 (48.1%) males, 322 (51.9%) females) at Sale Grammar School in Greater Manchester were asked to relate their mood to a MCW color and also complete the Hospital Anxiety Depression (HAD) questionnaire. To give these pupils an experience in science, 197 were divided into four subgroups for an 'experiment' to ascertain whether, compared to controls, a change in mood color choice could be induced by participation in sport, music or art activities. RESULTS: Although mood color and HAD depression score are unlikely to be measuring exactly the same psychological state, a negative mood color was chosen by 62.5% of HAD depressed compared to only 14.5% of HAD normal pupils (p < 0.001). In contrast, a positive mood color was chosen by 48.9% of normal and only 18.8% of depressed pupils (p < 0.001). In the 'experiment', compared to controls, all activities resulted in an increased choice of positive mood colors which reached significance for sport and music. CONCLUSION: This study confirms the potential utility of the MCW to rapidly and easily assess a variety of health issues in large populations, including adolescents. Some of our results should also be of interest to educationalists.

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AS THE DEVELOPMENT of electronic health records progresses, the amount of patient information entered manually into hospital clinical systems is increasing rapidly. But this rise in the use of computer keyboards, with their bumps and holes in which debris can accumulate, also increases the risk of cross-infection in hospital environments.

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New appointment WEAT NHS Connecting for Health (NHS CFH) are pleased to announce the appointment of Julie Tindale as national clinical lead for midwifery.

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PROGRESS CONTINUES to be made in the NHS National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT), and nurses continue to participate actively in the design, build and testing of the new IT software at national, regional and trust levels.

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EMBRACING TECHNOLOGY to improve the care we can provide to our patients is the cornerstone of what we do here at NHS Connecting for Health (NHS CFH).

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I BELIVE that we have reached a pivotal point in the development and roll out of the NHS National Programme for Information Technology, with more nurses and midwives actively engaged and involved in IT than ever before.

2020 is too late to solve nurse staffing crisis.

The year 2020 appears to be a magical one for the Department of Health (DH). In early August it announced plans to fund an extra 10,000 training places for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals by 2020.

Ministers must act now to prevent nurses from quitting the profession.

The Care Quality Commission published a review late last year of the way NHS trusts investigate patient deaths in England.

The government must listen to global advice and invest in the NHS.

A recent report from the RCN estimates there are 40,000 registered nurse vacancies in England alone, a figure that has doubled in the past three years.

Shutting out the press keeps public in the dark about the NHS.

In December, journalist AA Gill died from lung cancer. In his final column for the Sunday Times, he made two pertinent points about health care.

Only mandated ratios will enable proper workforce planning.

On 7 February, NHS staff were asked by Unison to record nurse-to-patient ratios as part of the union's sixth annual safe staffing survey.

Resign en masse or strike - it is time for nurses to get tough.

The annual Florence Nightingale memorial service, held in Westminster Abbey to commemorate International Nurses Day on May 12, is a poignant occasion where you feel you are renewing your nursing vows.

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WHEN WAS the last time you wrote a cheque? Or withdrew money over the counter at a bank? Some time ago, I expect.

At last we may see the evidence on safer nurse staffing levels.

Finally, the Department of Health has commissioned UK research that will identify nurse staffing requirements using the Safer Nursing Care Tool. It will model the costs and consequences of real-world application to address variations in patient need on hospital wards (for details see tinyurl.com/SNCTstudy ).

Losing nurse advisers is the final nail in the coffin.

Bit by bit, government meddling with the health service is diminishing the nurse's role.

Stand up for your rights.

UK nurses could learn a lot from their US counterparts when it comes to standing up for the profession.

Voices - Listen, learn and act now to achieve safe staffing, says Susan Osborne.

The latest report from the Public Accounts Committee severely criticises senior health service leaders.

We must strengthen our fight for a safer NHS.

On 15 November, up to 10,000 prison officers in England and Wales stopped work in protest against staffing cuts that have caused deterioration of safety in prisons, putting staff and prisoners at risk.

Safe staffing levels should be mandatory.

In August, the Welsh assembly said hospitals in Wales will be legally obliged to implement safe nurse staffing levels from April 2018.

Where are the regulators in this?

As the junior doctors escalate their industrial action, my question is : where are the regulators in all this when it comes to determining a safe ratio of clinician to patient?