Consultant’s Skills Essay Example for Free

Consultant’s Skills Essay In the corporate world, there is always a need to structure the best possible process of production. In this integral approach, a consultant’s skills can be utilized in order to provide a different or better insight about the needs of the company as well as to guide it for a better path of development.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A consultant is someone who has gained expertise about a particular field of study, research or work. He provides an advice in order to proceed with a particular action (Wikipedia, 2007). In this aspect, consultants are invited in most company functions to share his thoughts and assumptions about a certain business dilemma. Of course, these assumptions do not always reflect that of an enterprise solution but can also be used for some research and development principles.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   There are several responsibilities that a consultant needs to accomplish for a company. First, he needs to provide the most effective ways of dealing with a problem to the fullest of his knowledge. Second, he should communicate in the best possible way, probably in layman’s terms, what he thinks is the best approach in getting a resolution for a particular concern. Third, he must have quite a number of credible materials or resources that he can present to support his claims. Of course, there should be minimal questions about his skills since the company has hired him to become a consultant. But in order to gain a wider perspective of his talents, supporting materials must be available.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   There is a general classification of consultants, the internal and external ones. The main difference between the two can be identified on the way their skills are used for the company processes. It may be thought that external consultants work as freelancers who may then be regarded as a â€Å"contractor† (Friedl) while the internal counterpart is an in-house consultant engaged in direct company decisions.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   On the aspect of contributions, there might be a slight difference between the two categories. Internal consultants are more exposed to company operations which is of great advantage in sending information efficiently and in a faster way. They can utilize the core skills needed for a resolution (Robertson). On the other hand, external consultants may also provide the same quality of logical problem solving but it would probably take longer since he needs to first see the big picture of the problem before coming up with a solution. References Friedl, S. N.D. â€Å"So you want to be a consultant?† Unixwiz. Retrieved January 11, 2008 from http://unixwiz.net/techtips/be-consultant.html. Robertson, S. N.D. Experiences in Growing Internal Consultants with Object-oriented Skills. The Atlantic Systems Guild. Retrieved January 11, 2008 from http://www.systemsguild.com/GuildSite/SQR/internal_Consultants.html. Wikipedia. 2007. Consultant. Wikipedia-The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 11, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consultant.

Role Expansion of Support Staff in the NHS

Role Expansion of Support Staff in the NHS Abstract In this dissertation we examine the various aspects of role expansion of support staff within the confines of the NHS. We consider it on both a broad front and also make specific examination of those issues that concern staff connected with the operating theatres. We consider the background and political pressures that make role expansion desirable and possible. We also consider the implications of expansion in the NHS on both a professional and practical level. The issues are discussed in both specific and general terms. We illustrate three types of role expansion by reference to specific professional examples. One example is of the expansion from a caring role to that of the specialist provider, the second can be considered an example of role extension within a professional setting and the third is a natural expansion of the role which is required as technology and practice evolve. Methodology The methodology of this exploration was primarily by literature research. Progressive lines of enquiry were identified, researched and recorded. New lines of enquiry were identified as research progressed, and these were also examined for relevance and researched if considered appropriate to the theme of the dissertation. The literature search was mainly from library facilities. Local University, Post-Graduate hospital and public library facilities were extensively used together with some Internet based investigation. Some personal email enquiries were made from individuals who had experienced professional expansion and advice was taken in regard to both literature and direction of research. Introduction There is little doubt that the role of support staff has changed within the working lifetime of professionals currently working in the NHS. The thrust of this dissertation is to examine the means, the mechanisms and the degrees by which their role has changed. It barely needs stating that the NHS has changed. The political climate in which it operates has seen the NHS occupy varying positions of political prominence. Politicians are frequently seen publicly promising various sums of money for various projects of modernisation, expansion or generally to improve services. Every so often there is a major structural realignment of the management focus and mechanisms which, inevitably percolate through the tiers of control until the changes are felt at the level of the worker. In addition to this there are the technological changes which are largely independent of the politicians and the management structure. The rate of change in techniques, technology, support equipment and expertise appears to be increasing at an exponential rate. It clearly follows that the professional requirements of the support staff must keep pace with these changes and the training that they receive must inevitably reflect the needs of the ever changing working environment. (Ashburner L et al 1996) Evidence of change In any rational discussion, it is vital to work from a firm and secure evidence base. (EHC 1999). This requires careful and critical appraisal of the evidence and a decision as to just how applicable it is to the situation under consideration. In this dissertation we shall therefore be presenting evidence to support this evidence base together with appropriate assessments and judgements as to its validity. Most professionals working in the NHS would attest, if asked, to a perception of a continuous pace of change. Such anecdotal evidence, although interesting, is of little value to any form of critical appraisal. There are a number of reasonably â€Å"hard† statistics that give us much firmer evidence of change in the NHS. Let us consider some of the employment statistics published by the Department of Health for the NHS (whole of UK) and refers to non-medical staff. In 1997 the total number of NHS hospital and community based staff was 935,000. Of these 67% were direct care staff and 33% were management staff. The 67% direct care staff could be broken down into 330,620 nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff (246,010 being qualified) 100,440 scientific, therapeutic and technical staff 17,940 healthcare assistants 21,430 were managers the rest were estates, clerical and administrative staff 79% were women and 6% were from ethnic minorities (NSO 1998) If we compare this with the situation in 2000 by looking at the same parameters we can see: 346,180 nursing, midwifery and health visitor staff (256,280 were qualified). 110,410 scientific, therapeutic and technical staff 62,870 support staff and 23,140 healthcare assistants. 68% were direct care staff and 32% were management and support staff. 79% were women and 7% from the ethnic minorities (NSO 2001) And in 2001 we find a further difference, which is rather more dramatic: 458, 580 nursing, midwifery and health visitor staff (330,540 were qualified) 139,050 scientific, therapeutic and technical staff 23,140 healthcare assistants. 82% were women and 6% from the ethnic minorities (NSO 2002) If we go further back we can find evidence of 93,950 scientific, therapeutic and technical staff were employed, and there were 13,090 healthcare assistants in 1995 (NSO 1996) If we consider the documented trends in support staff we can trace 1995 93,950 1997 100,440 2000 110,410 2001 139,050 Over a comparatively short time there has clearly been a demonstrable increase in terms of numbers employed , nearly a 50% increase on the 1995 levels in six years. Reasons for change In opening this dissertation we made anecdotal reference to the political agenda that shaped the NHS. The NHS has historically been high in the public’s perception of a tangible measure of a Government’s success in delivering its regularly promised higher standard of living. It is partly for this reason, that successive governments have felt it politically expedient to invest increasing sums of money in measures for both expansion and improvement together with various drives aimed at increasing efficiency. (Ham C 1999) In the recent past there have been a raft of measures that have been produced which have all played their part in the evolution of the NHS to its current configuration and in doing so have expanded the role of not only the support worker but virtually all of the workers in the NHS at the same time. One of the first measures which was an overt indication of the forthcoming changes in working practice was the introduction of the performance indicators (Beecham L 1994) These were progressively introduced form 1992 onwards and in some respects could be considered the forerunner of the move towards National Service Frameworks. The original performance indicators imposed a duty or obligation on Trusts to carry out certain procedures within a specified maximum time. For example the indicators introduced in 1994-5 were on waiting times for first outpatient appointment and also for charters in General Practice. Although there were clear obligations on medical and nursing staff to make available sufficient sessions in order to see the patients, it is clear that the increased throughput of patients would clearly impact on the working practices (and work load) of the support staff. To a large extent, this can be seen from the figures presented at the beginning of this work. The 50% increase in staffing levels amongst the support staff reflects, in a large part, the changes that were consequent on the imposition of the performance indicators. The initial indicators proved to be quite onerous in terms of achieving compliance even though the later ones gave tighter requirements still. For example the 1994 indicators set a target of 90% of patients seen by a consultant within 26 weeks of a written referral letter being received from the General Practitioner in the major specialities of general medicine, general surgery and dermatology. (Editor BMJ 1994) It follows that this target is not quite as innocuous as it might at first appear. If we accept the fact that a substantial number of patients were already waiting for considerably longer than 26 weeks it represented a major shift in working practices to meet this particular deadline. Once the patients were seen it followed that they then had to have whatever treatment was thought to be appropriate. An increase in outpatients seen inevitably means an increase in patients waiting for inpatient treatment. So either the waiting lists go up further for inpatient treatment, or there is also a change of working practice to accommodate an increase in demand. This inevitably also impacts on the support staff as much as it does on the medical staff. (Langham S et al 1997) We shall consider this particular phenomenon in greater depth later when we consider the expansion of the nurse to specialist endoscopist and the running of one-stop clinics. Some novel methods were invoked to try to accommodate this shift in demand. There was a substantial increase in the frequency of day case surgery. Not only were a greater variety of surgical procedures being routinely carried out as day cases but it also resulted in more patients being assessed as suitable to undergo day case surgery. (HSE 2001) The same phenomenon of knock on effects arose form some of the other performance indicators. One of the original indicators was the percentage of patients seen within 5 mins of entering the casualty department. It follows that as hospitals strove to increase their performance indicators and the percentage of patients seen promptly rose, having been seen they then had to be treated and the same argument applies. Either there is an increase in the number of patients awaiting treatment in the A E departments, or there is a change in working practice to accommodate them and also to get them treated sooner. The organisation and efficiency of this system falls heavily on the support staff who clearly had to be able to accommodate this increased demand. (Langham S et al 1997) The indicators eventually began to involve inpatient statistics as well as outpatient ones. One, introduced in 1996, was on the number and availability of emergency operating theatres. More evidence of the reasons for this change comes from a paper by Scally and Donaldson (1998). We note that it was actually written by Liam Donaldson when he was a Regional Director of the NHS before he subsequently became Secretary of State for Health, so his comments can be taken with suitable gravitas. A critical analysis of the paper shows that it makes a number of points that are really overtly political, but it outlines the trend of change of emphasis where the improvements expected through clinical governance will not only be an â€Å"ideal goal† but will become a statutory requirement. This clearly pre-empts the changes prescribed in the NHS Plan. The paper outlines new goals â€Å"in which financial control, service performance, and clinical quality are fully integrated at every level† are behind the major thrust of the piece. Careful reading of the paper strongly suggests that inherent in the restructuring plans is a change in emphasis onto expansion of professional roles and greater working flexibility between professions which is fundamental to our considerations here. (Gray C 2005). We also note that the â€Å"stage was being set† for the potential role change of healthcare professionals in general and the four main precepts of this paper impact on that belief, namely: Clinical governance is to be the main vehicle for continuously improving the quality of patient care and developing the capacity of the NHS in England to maintain high standards (including dealing with poor professional performance) It requires an organisation-wide transformation; clinical leadership and positive organisational cultures are particularly important Professional self regulation will be the key to dealing with the complex problems of poor performance among clinicians New approaches are needed to enable the recognition and replication of good clinical practice to ensure that lessons are reliably learned from failures in standards of care It is clearly significant that all of these points were implemented and indeed, expanded, when Donaldson was appointed to the office of Secretary of State for Health and they can be seen as both enhancing and reinforcing the points that we have presented relating to the guidance from the Nursing Midwifery Council about the expansion of professional roles. Because of their seminal importance in the examination of our subject, let us consider the background to these points further. We note that Donaldson was originally recruited from a business background and the record shows that he has chosen to apply a great many sound and proven business principles to both the structuring and the workings of the NHS. Many of his strategies and perhaps ideas, have a clear ancestry in the Cadbury Report (1992) which effectively analysed the overall impact of governance and issues of changing working practices and consequent responsibility in the business world. The report focused on the issues surrounding an expansion of responsibility and a consequent failure to take responsibility for one’s actions, frequently passing on the implied responsibility to another employee in the same company. It found this practice to be both counterproductive and inefficient and frequently would lead to defensive stances and attitudes being adopted. When problems arose, they were therefore far more difficult to actively solve. (Lakhani M 2005) Donaldson was instrumental in applying this strategy to a clinical setting within the working practices of the NHS. This particular paper takes the view that by promoting individual professional responsibility he would be encouraging a system that would allow:- NHS organisations to be accountable for continuously improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish. By implication this argument extends to the expansion and role realignment in general terms throughout the NHS. We shall consider the elements in this paper which are of relevance to these arguments. Staff self-esteem is of great value to an organisation. Frequently this is associated with increased responsibility and a firm professional footing. (Davies HTO et al. 2000). Donaldson and Scally clearly espouse the virtue of professional responsibility at all levels in an organisation and encourage staff to take, rather than to devolve responsibility for their actions and indeed seek to ideally provide a ambience that is conducive to expansion of responsibility which therefore generally benefits the whole organisation. Tools of change Although we are primarily considering the support worker in this dissertation we must first broaden the agenda in order to set our examination in an appropriate context. There have been a number of Government White Papers, consultative documents and advisory initiatives that have concerned the workings of the NHS. Some have greater practical significance than others. There appear to have been significantly more in the last decade than previously and anecdotal and observational evidence would seem to suggest that these too, are increasing at an exponential rate. One of the landmark plans in recent years has been the NHS Plan. It has been compared by some commentators as being on comparative magnitude as the original inception of the NHS in 1948 (Shortell SM et al 1998). It is quite possible that a cynical appraisal of the Plan would see it is little more than the result of political rhetoric and pre-emptive manoeuvring as a response to the perceived public disquiet about the state of the NHS. On the other extreme the optimist might view it as a positive plan for major improvement. (Moss et al 1995). Having the benefit of hindsight, there is no doubt that it has been the catalyst for a number of significant changes in the NHS, it is, of course, totally dependent upon your own particular viewpoint as to whether these changes are regarded as beneficial or otherwise. One has to be extremely careful in evaluating such comments as clearly it depends on the criteria chosen for evaluation as to whether the reform will appear to be positive or negative. (Bilsberry J. 1996) One only has to consider the debacle which ensued after the introduction of the Griffiths Report in the 1980s (Griffiths Report 1983). This was considered to be a major reform of the management structure of the NHS. There was general agreement that the management had become to unwieldy, detached and inefficient with too many layers of management. (Davies,C et al. 2000), The Griffiths Report was commissioned with the specific purpose of streamlining the management profile and was charged with the specific responsibility of improving both efficiency and accountability. The subsequent plan was unveiled and introduced piecemeal. In the words of the Government appointed reviewer of the episode :- These were a set of reforms that were designed to â€Å"streamline the administration â€Å" of the NHS. It involved a major change in emphasis in the way that the NHS was run, and in short, it was badly conceived, patchily implemented and introduced piecemeal. By any critical analysis it proved to be a complete disaster. (Davidmann 1988) It is not actually possible to pass judgement on whether the plan would have been successful or not as its method of introduction was generally seen to be its downfall. In essence, its introduction was not managed in any contemporary sense of the word, it was simply imposed and the chaos that ensued prompted the government to institute another report to glean what lessons it could form the whole affair. (Davidmann 1988). It is fair to comment that the majority of reforms that have been introduced since that time have been far more professionally managed and their introduction (whatever their eventual outcome) have generally been comparatively smooth and uneventful (Bennis et al 1999) The area of change management as a science and discipline is both extremely involved and complex. Changing the structure of a massive and established organisation such as the NHS is clearly difficult with established attitudes, working practices and inherent inertia. The lessons learned from the Griffiths Report appear to have been successfully applied to the introduction of the NHS Plan (Bryant 2005) In specific consideration of the NHS plan we should note that the specific stated aims of the plan were to:- Increase funding and reform Aim to redress geographical inequalities, Improve service standards, Extend patient choice. These aims have been, to some extent translated into reality. Let us examine each in detail. The increased funding was specifically delivered in the March 2000 budget settlement and has been honoured in successive budgets since. The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that the money made available would ensure that the NHS would grow by one half in cash terms and by one third in real terms in just five years. Our examination of staffing levels (above) would seem to suggest that this trend has been successfully established. In addition, he promised a  £500 million â€Å"performance fund† for specific areas which were to be identified by separate investigation as being in particular need of assistance. (Halligan et al 2001) This certainly directly impinges upon our considerations of support staff and we shall return to this point later. The geographical inequalities and service standards are specifically addressed in the introduction of the National Service Frameworks which are mechanisms for specifically addressing inequalities and setting of both targets and goals of performance and excellence on a National rather than a local level, (Rouse et al 2001) and have been progressively rolled out across the country. These measures have been established in collaboration with assistance and guidance from bodies such as the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) which has a remit to examine both practices and facilities with the specific aim of achieving national standards. ( viz. NICE 2004) (NHS KSF 2004) It has made a number of recommendations which appear to have a firm evidence base. (Berwick D 2005) We should perhaps take this opportunity to note that the Institute, although undoubtedly set up in response to a worthy ideal, is already finding itself short of funding to do the job that it was originally conceived for. Spokesmen have already commented that it is short of money to achieve the research necessary to justify its continued activity (Shannon 2003) Patient choice is a far more complex issue that it might originally appear. Initial examination might suggest that to give patients the freedom to go where they wish to get their medical care is a fine objective, but closer examination of the issue would reveal that it has numerous pitfalls. In the specific terms of the NHS plan, it actually means that the patient’s primary healthcare team has a more wide-reaching choice of where they choose to refer the patient. (Wierzbicki et al 2001). A patient may consider any number of factors which may influence their choice of hospital including such factors as the general look of the buildings, the geographical site in relation to their friends and family and what they have read or heard anecdotally about the hospital. None of these factors have any major bearing on the treatment that they will receive. It may be that they will discover that the waiting list is shorter at hospital A than hospital B. what may well be less obvious to the patient is that hospital A may have a shorter waiting list because the local primary healthcare teams know that it has a number of serious shortcomings and so they tend to refer their patients to hospital B which consequently has a longer waiting list. Of course , we mustn’t ignore the possibility that hospital A is actually more efficient that hospital B or that hospital C provides a more comprehensive, courteous and efficient service with greater expertise than hospital D, but the primary healthcare teams are generally best placed to see the outcomes of their local hospitals and will generally know where their patients are served better in each individual circumstance. (after Donaldson L 2001) In the context of our examination here, all four of these aims have potential impact on our subject as each of these objectives are effectively resolved by expanding, and in some cases changing, the roles of staff within the NHS. Clearly the impact will vary between different disciplines and indeed, different geographical areas, but the overall objective of improving the efficiency and introduction of patient orientated goals has largely been met by the three expedients of: a) making more money available b) adopting progressive management strategies c) increasing staffing levels and redefining some roles within the NHS ( after Dixon et al 2003) It is perhaps useful to consider the whole of the NHS Plan as part of a reform continuum which has shaped the evolution of the NHS since its inception. We have already highlighted the Griffiths Reforms, but other landmark reforms that impact upon our considerations of change must include the Agenda for Change (2004) which is primarily staff and employment orientated and is concerned with a number of measures including staffing levels, staff role descriptions and staff pay levels. It has only recently been implemented (September 2005) and, for our purposes here, should be viewed in conjunction with another Government White Paper which is the complimentary NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF 2004). This particular paper targets the need for both recognising and rewarding specific speciality orientated enhancement of both skills and knowledge that are actually relevant to professional performance in both designated areas and in professional performance generally. Reading of the provisions reveals that the general provision of  £280 million over a three year period to â€Å"develop specific designated staff skills†. One of the proposed mechanisms is to set up individual learning accounts which will be worth  £150 per year. It is not yet clear what the impact will yet be on support staff in either specific or general terms. The impact of these reforms seems to be felt on many levels. There appears to be a move towards the redesignation of roles, flexible working, skill mix and the redesignation of professional boundaries. The NHS Plan itself calls for a number of changes to be made in working practices, both general (conceptual) and specific. It also calls for a change in the actual roles of some healthcare professionals, including support staff. It goes into great detail about the need for some of these changes need to be established but it also has to be observed that there is actually very little detail in the Plan as to how these changes are either to be introduced or managed. It refers to the changes in general terms, there is actually very little detail relating to what it expects these changes to actually be in reality. (Krogstad et al 2002) If one were to produce an analysis of the pre-2000 structure of the NHS one could conclude that it had three major problems which were not consistent with the function, structure and organisation of a typical 21st century industry a lack of national standards old-fashioned demarcations between staff and barriers between services a lack of clear incentives and levers to improve performance over-centralisation and disempowered patients. (Nickols 2004) One observation that is also relevant to our considerations here is the phrase â€Å"seamless interface† appears very frequently throughout the document. Although it is primarily applied to the interface between primary and secondary care, it is also, both explicitly and by implication, applied to the interface between different groups of professionals within both aspects of the service. (Rudd et al 1997) In direct consideration of our subject, we can take this to mean that there is a requirement for seamless interaction between all factions of the operating theatre staff and between them and the other professionals in the hospital. (Dixon et al 2003) Other significant milestones in the changes in the role of support staff were the introduction of the National Service Framework. These are a series of recommendations, stipulations and targets which are designed to raise the performance to the level of the best across the nation rather than to have pockets of excellence surrounded by a sea of mediocrity (White M 2005). The issues surrounding the National Service Frameworks are huge, as they collectively cover most of the major therapeutic areas in medicine. The reason for their inclusion in this particular consideration, is because of their collective impact on the role of the support staff, who have to expand their role and skills in order to comply with their requirements. It is completely impractical to consider all of the implications of the National Service Frameworks so, as a representative â€Å"sample† we will consider just one, the National Service Framework for the elderly. In distinct contrast to our comments in relation to the Griffiths Report earlier in this piece, the introduction of the National Service Frameworks could be considered nothing short of exemplary. There have been consultation periods, pre-implementation pilots and possibly most importantly, a well publicised and staged National roll-out programme which was designed to implement each of the strategies in a graded and controlled fashion with the intention of trying to ensure smooth implementation across the country. (Nickols F.2004). If we consider as an exploratory example, a small portion of the National Service Framework for the elderly Standard Two, this states that it should ensure that: Ensure that older people are treated as individuals and that they receive appropriate and timely packages of care which meet their needs as individuals, regardless of health and social services boundaries. One could perhaps reasonably hope that such aspirations would have been unnecessary, but behind the actual words are a number of other concepts that are central to our consideration to the expanding role of the support staff. The concept of â€Å"Person Centred Care† is a central precept of the Standard Two. It is described with the intention of trying to allow the elderly to feel entitled to be treated as individuals and also to allow them to retain responsibility for their own choices for their own care. The expansions of the roles of the support staff comes primarily in the adoption of the main tenet of the concept of Person Centred Care and that is the introduction of the Single Assessment Process (SAP). This recognises that there are effectively a great number of support agencies that potential can be involved to look after the needs of the elderly, both in hospital and after discharge. Prior to the introduction of the National Service Framework, it was common practice for each agency to separately make contact with the patient and make their own assessment in terms of their own distinct considerations. We shall discuss this point later in the context of insularity of specialities. The end result of this process was the fact that, very commonly, the same (or similar) facts are repeatedly elicited on different occasions with all the implications that this type of duplication has on inefficient working and waste of resources. (Fatchett A. 1998). The SAP is designed so that any member of the health care team can assemble the information in such a way and in such a format that it will be of use to the other members of the team, or for that matter any of the agencies who might have a legitimate need for the information. This particular role expansion is designed to assist in reducing the amount of red tape that appears to be an inevitable encumbrance of many of the measures that are designed to assist the elderly patient, and only appears to finish up by hampering them. (Gott M 2000). The adoption of the Single Assessment Process is no more than one example, perhaps not so much of an expansion of the role, but a realignment of the role of support staff. It is still a fairly new concept and is central to the aims of the National Service Framework that the needs and wishes of the patient should be at the heart of the whole process. Because it is new, the extent to which it can accommodate these aims and aspirations alongside the day to day practicalities of service provision still has yet to be fully assessed. (Mannion R et al 2005) In some ways, this new role expansion can be viewed in parallel with the concepts of seamless interfacing and multidisciplinary team working which we have examined elsewhere in this dissertation. Given the fact that the Single Assessment Process has only been operational since April 2004, but the move towards multidisciplinary team working and the concept of the seamless interface has been apparent and espoused for some years (Mason et al 2003). The latter were effectively translated into reality without major upheaval, one can be reasonably confident that the same will eventually be said for both the Single Assessment Process and its implications for both staff and patients. We have described this particular example of role expansion more as a realignment because, at first sight, its implications are quite subtle when compared to other examples that we shall be considering, but equally they are quite fundamental, as they impinge upon the role Role Expansion of Support Staff in the NHS Role Expansion of Support Staff in the NHS Abstract In this dissertation we examine the various aspects of role expansion of support staff within the confines of the NHS. We consider it on both a broad front and also make specific examination of those issues that concern staff connected with the operating theatres. We consider the background and political pressures that make role expansion desirable and possible. We also consider the implications of expansion in the NHS on both a professional and practical level. The issues are discussed in both specific and general terms. We illustrate three types of role expansion by reference to specific professional examples. One example is of the expansion from a caring role to that of the specialist provider, the second can be considered an example of role extension within a professional setting and the third is a natural expansion of the role which is required as technology and practice evolve. Methodology The methodology of this exploration was primarily by literature research. Progressive lines of enquiry were identified, researched and recorded. New lines of enquiry were identified as research progressed, and these were also examined for relevance and researched if considered appropriate to the theme of the dissertation. The literature search was mainly from library facilities. Local University, Post-Graduate hospital and public library facilities were extensively used together with some Internet based investigation. Some personal email enquiries were made from individuals who had experienced professional expansion and advice was taken in regard to both literature and direction of research. Introduction There is little doubt that the role of support staff has changed within the working lifetime of professionals currently working in the NHS. The thrust of this dissertation is to examine the means, the mechanisms and the degrees by which their role has changed. It barely needs stating that the NHS has changed. The political climate in which it operates has seen the NHS occupy varying positions of political prominence. Politicians are frequently seen publicly promising various sums of money for various projects of modernisation, expansion or generally to improve services. Every so often there is a major structural realignment of the management focus and mechanisms which, inevitably percolate through the tiers of control until the changes are felt at the level of the worker. In addition to this there are the technological changes which are largely independent of the politicians and the management structure. The rate of change in techniques, technology, support equipment and expertise appears to be increasing at an exponential rate. It clearly follows that the professional requirements of the support staff must keep pace with these changes and the training that they receive must inevitably reflect the needs of the ever changing working environment. (Ashburner L et al 1996) Evidence of change In any rational discussion, it is vital to work from a firm and secure evidence base. (EHC 1999). This requires careful and critical appraisal of the evidence and a decision as to just how applicable it is to the situation under consideration. In this dissertation we shall therefore be presenting evidence to support this evidence base together with appropriate assessments and judgements as to its validity. Most professionals working in the NHS would attest, if asked, to a perception of a continuous pace of change. Such anecdotal evidence, although interesting, is of little value to any form of critical appraisal. There are a number of reasonably â€Å"hard† statistics that give us much firmer evidence of change in the NHS. Let us consider some of the employment statistics published by the Department of Health for the NHS (whole of UK) and refers to non-medical staff. In 1997 the total number of NHS hospital and community based staff was 935,000. Of these 67% were direct care staff and 33% were management staff. The 67% direct care staff could be broken down into 330,620 nursing, midwifery and health visiting staff (246,010 being qualified) 100,440 scientific, therapeutic and technical staff 17,940 healthcare assistants 21,430 were managers the rest were estates, clerical and administrative staff 79% were women and 6% were from ethnic minorities (NSO 1998) If we compare this with the situation in 2000 by looking at the same parameters we can see: 346,180 nursing, midwifery and health visitor staff (256,280 were qualified). 110,410 scientific, therapeutic and technical staff 62,870 support staff and 23,140 healthcare assistants. 68% were direct care staff and 32% were management and support staff. 79% were women and 7% from the ethnic minorities (NSO 2001) And in 2001 we find a further difference, which is rather more dramatic: 458, 580 nursing, midwifery and health visitor staff (330,540 were qualified) 139,050 scientific, therapeutic and technical staff 23,140 healthcare assistants. 82% were women and 6% from the ethnic minorities (NSO 2002) If we go further back we can find evidence of 93,950 scientific, therapeutic and technical staff were employed, and there were 13,090 healthcare assistants in 1995 (NSO 1996) If we consider the documented trends in support staff we can trace 1995 93,950 1997 100,440 2000 110,410 2001 139,050 Over a comparatively short time there has clearly been a demonstrable increase in terms of numbers employed , nearly a 50% increase on the 1995 levels in six years. Reasons for change In opening this dissertation we made anecdotal reference to the political agenda that shaped the NHS. The NHS has historically been high in the public’s perception of a tangible measure of a Government’s success in delivering its regularly promised higher standard of living. It is partly for this reason, that successive governments have felt it politically expedient to invest increasing sums of money in measures for both expansion and improvement together with various drives aimed at increasing efficiency. (Ham C 1999) In the recent past there have been a raft of measures that have been produced which have all played their part in the evolution of the NHS to its current configuration and in doing so have expanded the role of not only the support worker but virtually all of the workers in the NHS at the same time. One of the first measures which was an overt indication of the forthcoming changes in working practice was the introduction of the performance indicators (Beecham L 1994) These were progressively introduced form 1992 onwards and in some respects could be considered the forerunner of the move towards National Service Frameworks. The original performance indicators imposed a duty or obligation on Trusts to carry out certain procedures within a specified maximum time. For example the indicators introduced in 1994-5 were on waiting times for first outpatient appointment and also for charters in General Practice. Although there were clear obligations on medical and nursing staff to make available sufficient sessions in order to see the patients, it is clear that the increased throughput of patients would clearly impact on the working practices (and work load) of the support staff. To a large extent, this can be seen from the figures presented at the beginning of this work. The 50% increase in staffing levels amongst the support staff reflects, in a large part, the changes that were consequent on the imposition of the performance indicators. The initial indicators proved to be quite onerous in terms of achieving compliance even though the later ones gave tighter requirements still. For example the 1994 indicators set a target of 90% of patients seen by a consultant within 26 weeks of a written referral letter being received from the General Practitioner in the major specialities of general medicine, general surgery and dermatology. (Editor BMJ 1994) It follows that this target is not quite as innocuous as it might at first appear. If we accept the fact that a substantial number of patients were already waiting for considerably longer than 26 weeks it represented a major shift in working practices to meet this particular deadline. Once the patients were seen it followed that they then had to have whatever treatment was thought to be appropriate. An increase in outpatients seen inevitably means an increase in patients waiting for inpatient treatment. So either the waiting lists go up further for inpatient treatment, or there is also a change of working practice to accommodate an increase in demand. This inevitably also impacts on the support staff as much as it does on the medical staff. (Langham S et al 1997) We shall consider this particular phenomenon in greater depth later when we consider the expansion of the nurse to specialist endoscopist and the running of one-stop clinics. Some novel methods were invoked to try to accommodate this shift in demand. There was a substantial increase in the frequency of day case surgery. Not only were a greater variety of surgical procedures being routinely carried out as day cases but it also resulted in more patients being assessed as suitable to undergo day case surgery. (HSE 2001) The same phenomenon of knock on effects arose form some of the other performance indicators. One of the original indicators was the percentage of patients seen within 5 mins of entering the casualty department. It follows that as hospitals strove to increase their performance indicators and the percentage of patients seen promptly rose, having been seen they then had to be treated and the same argument applies. Either there is an increase in the number of patients awaiting treatment in the A E departments, or there is a change in working practice to accommodate them and also to get them treated sooner. The organisation and efficiency of this system falls heavily on the support staff who clearly had to be able to accommodate this increased demand. (Langham S et al 1997) The indicators eventually began to involve inpatient statistics as well as outpatient ones. One, introduced in 1996, was on the number and availability of emergency operating theatres. More evidence of the reasons for this change comes from a paper by Scally and Donaldson (1998). We note that it was actually written by Liam Donaldson when he was a Regional Director of the NHS before he subsequently became Secretary of State for Health, so his comments can be taken with suitable gravitas. A critical analysis of the paper shows that it makes a number of points that are really overtly political, but it outlines the trend of change of emphasis where the improvements expected through clinical governance will not only be an â€Å"ideal goal† but will become a statutory requirement. This clearly pre-empts the changes prescribed in the NHS Plan. The paper outlines new goals â€Å"in which financial control, service performance, and clinical quality are fully integrated at every level† are behind the major thrust of the piece. Careful reading of the paper strongly suggests that inherent in the restructuring plans is a change in emphasis onto expansion of professional roles and greater working flexibility between professions which is fundamental to our considerations here. (Gray C 2005). We also note that the â€Å"stage was being set† for the potential role change of healthcare professionals in general and the four main precepts of this paper impact on that belief, namely: Clinical governance is to be the main vehicle for continuously improving the quality of patient care and developing the capacity of the NHS in England to maintain high standards (including dealing with poor professional performance) It requires an organisation-wide transformation; clinical leadership and positive organisational cultures are particularly important Professional self regulation will be the key to dealing with the complex problems of poor performance among clinicians New approaches are needed to enable the recognition and replication of good clinical practice to ensure that lessons are reliably learned from failures in standards of care It is clearly significant that all of these points were implemented and indeed, expanded, when Donaldson was appointed to the office of Secretary of State for Health and they can be seen as both enhancing and reinforcing the points that we have presented relating to the guidance from the Nursing Midwifery Council about the expansion of professional roles. Because of their seminal importance in the examination of our subject, let us consider the background to these points further. We note that Donaldson was originally recruited from a business background and the record shows that he has chosen to apply a great many sound and proven business principles to both the structuring and the workings of the NHS. Many of his strategies and perhaps ideas, have a clear ancestry in the Cadbury Report (1992) which effectively analysed the overall impact of governance and issues of changing working practices and consequent responsibility in the business world. The report focused on the issues surrounding an expansion of responsibility and a consequent failure to take responsibility for one’s actions, frequently passing on the implied responsibility to another employee in the same company. It found this practice to be both counterproductive and inefficient and frequently would lead to defensive stances and attitudes being adopted. When problems arose, they were therefore far more difficult to actively solve. (Lakhani M 2005) Donaldson was instrumental in applying this strategy to a clinical setting within the working practices of the NHS. This particular paper takes the view that by promoting individual professional responsibility he would be encouraging a system that would allow:- NHS organisations to be accountable for continuously improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish. By implication this argument extends to the expansion and role realignment in general terms throughout the NHS. We shall consider the elements in this paper which are of relevance to these arguments. Staff self-esteem is of great value to an organisation. Frequently this is associated with increased responsibility and a firm professional footing. (Davies HTO et al. 2000). Donaldson and Scally clearly espouse the virtue of professional responsibility at all levels in an organisation and encourage staff to take, rather than to devolve responsibility for their actions and indeed seek to ideally provide a ambience that is conducive to expansion of responsibility which therefore generally benefits the whole organisation. Tools of change Although we are primarily considering the support worker in this dissertation we must first broaden the agenda in order to set our examination in an appropriate context. There have been a number of Government White Papers, consultative documents and advisory initiatives that have concerned the workings of the NHS. Some have greater practical significance than others. There appear to have been significantly more in the last decade than previously and anecdotal and observational evidence would seem to suggest that these too, are increasing at an exponential rate. One of the landmark plans in recent years has been the NHS Plan. It has been compared by some commentators as being on comparative magnitude as the original inception of the NHS in 1948 (Shortell SM et al 1998). It is quite possible that a cynical appraisal of the Plan would see it is little more than the result of political rhetoric and pre-emptive manoeuvring as a response to the perceived public disquiet about the state of the NHS. On the other extreme the optimist might view it as a positive plan for major improvement. (Moss et al 1995). Having the benefit of hindsight, there is no doubt that it has been the catalyst for a number of significant changes in the NHS, it is, of course, totally dependent upon your own particular viewpoint as to whether these changes are regarded as beneficial or otherwise. One has to be extremely careful in evaluating such comments as clearly it depends on the criteria chosen for evaluation as to whether the reform will appear to be positive or negative. (Bilsberry J. 1996) One only has to consider the debacle which ensued after the introduction of the Griffiths Report in the 1980s (Griffiths Report 1983). This was considered to be a major reform of the management structure of the NHS. There was general agreement that the management had become to unwieldy, detached and inefficient with too many layers of management. (Davies,C et al. 2000), The Griffiths Report was commissioned with the specific purpose of streamlining the management profile and was charged with the specific responsibility of improving both efficiency and accountability. The subsequent plan was unveiled and introduced piecemeal. In the words of the Government appointed reviewer of the episode :- These were a set of reforms that were designed to â€Å"streamline the administration â€Å" of the NHS. It involved a major change in emphasis in the way that the NHS was run, and in short, it was badly conceived, patchily implemented and introduced piecemeal. By any critical analysis it proved to be a complete disaster. (Davidmann 1988) It is not actually possible to pass judgement on whether the plan would have been successful or not as its method of introduction was generally seen to be its downfall. In essence, its introduction was not managed in any contemporary sense of the word, it was simply imposed and the chaos that ensued prompted the government to institute another report to glean what lessons it could form the whole affair. (Davidmann 1988). It is fair to comment that the majority of reforms that have been introduced since that time have been far more professionally managed and their introduction (whatever their eventual outcome) have generally been comparatively smooth and uneventful (Bennis et al 1999) The area of change management as a science and discipline is both extremely involved and complex. Changing the structure of a massive and established organisation such as the NHS is clearly difficult with established attitudes, working practices and inherent inertia. The lessons learned from the Griffiths Report appear to have been successfully applied to the introduction of the NHS Plan (Bryant 2005) In specific consideration of the NHS plan we should note that the specific stated aims of the plan were to:- Increase funding and reform Aim to redress geographical inequalities, Improve service standards, Extend patient choice. These aims have been, to some extent translated into reality. Let us examine each in detail. The increased funding was specifically delivered in the March 2000 budget settlement and has been honoured in successive budgets since. The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that the money made available would ensure that the NHS would grow by one half in cash terms and by one third in real terms in just five years. Our examination of staffing levels (above) would seem to suggest that this trend has been successfully established. In addition, he promised a  £500 million â€Å"performance fund† for specific areas which were to be identified by separate investigation as being in particular need of assistance. (Halligan et al 2001) This certainly directly impinges upon our considerations of support staff and we shall return to this point later. The geographical inequalities and service standards are specifically addressed in the introduction of the National Service Frameworks which are mechanisms for specifically addressing inequalities and setting of both targets and goals of performance and excellence on a National rather than a local level, (Rouse et al 2001) and have been progressively rolled out across the country. These measures have been established in collaboration with assistance and guidance from bodies such as the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) which has a remit to examine both practices and facilities with the specific aim of achieving national standards. ( viz. NICE 2004) (NHS KSF 2004) It has made a number of recommendations which appear to have a firm evidence base. (Berwick D 2005) We should perhaps take this opportunity to note that the Institute, although undoubtedly set up in response to a worthy ideal, is already finding itself short of funding to do the job that it was originally conceived for. Spokesmen have already commented that it is short of money to achieve the research necessary to justify its continued activity (Shannon 2003) Patient choice is a far more complex issue that it might originally appear. Initial examination might suggest that to give patients the freedom to go where they wish to get their medical care is a fine objective, but closer examination of the issue would reveal that it has numerous pitfalls. In the specific terms of the NHS plan, it actually means that the patient’s primary healthcare team has a more wide-reaching choice of where they choose to refer the patient. (Wierzbicki et al 2001). A patient may consider any number of factors which may influence their choice of hospital including such factors as the general look of the buildings, the geographical site in relation to their friends and family and what they have read or heard anecdotally about the hospital. None of these factors have any major bearing on the treatment that they will receive. It may be that they will discover that the waiting list is shorter at hospital A than hospital B. what may well be less obvious to the patient is that hospital A may have a shorter waiting list because the local primary healthcare teams know that it has a number of serious shortcomings and so they tend to refer their patients to hospital B which consequently has a longer waiting list. Of course , we mustn’t ignore the possibility that hospital A is actually more efficient that hospital B or that hospital C provides a more comprehensive, courteous and efficient service with greater expertise than hospital D, but the primary healthcare teams are generally best placed to see the outcomes of their local hospitals and will generally know where their patients are served better in each individual circumstance. (after Donaldson L 2001) In the context of our examination here, all four of these aims have potential impact on our subject as each of these objectives are effectively resolved by expanding, and in some cases changing, the roles of staff within the NHS. Clearly the impact will vary between different disciplines and indeed, different geographical areas, but the overall objective of improving the efficiency and introduction of patient orientated goals has largely been met by the three expedients of: a) making more money available b) adopting progressive management strategies c) increasing staffing levels and redefining some roles within the NHS ( after Dixon et al 2003) It is perhaps useful to consider the whole of the NHS Plan as part of a reform continuum which has shaped the evolution of the NHS since its inception. We have already highlighted the Griffiths Reforms, but other landmark reforms that impact upon our considerations of change must include the Agenda for Change (2004) which is primarily staff and employment orientated and is concerned with a number of measures including staffing levels, staff role descriptions and staff pay levels. It has only recently been implemented (September 2005) and, for our purposes here, should be viewed in conjunction with another Government White Paper which is the complimentary NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF 2004). This particular paper targets the need for both recognising and rewarding specific speciality orientated enhancement of both skills and knowledge that are actually relevant to professional performance in both designated areas and in professional performance generally. Reading of the provisions reveals that the general provision of  £280 million over a three year period to â€Å"develop specific designated staff skills†. One of the proposed mechanisms is to set up individual learning accounts which will be worth  £150 per year. It is not yet clear what the impact will yet be on support staff in either specific or general terms. The impact of these reforms seems to be felt on many levels. There appears to be a move towards the redesignation of roles, flexible working, skill mix and the redesignation of professional boundaries. The NHS Plan itself calls for a number of changes to be made in working practices, both general (conceptual) and specific. It also calls for a change in the actual roles of some healthcare professionals, including support staff. It goes into great detail about the need for some of these changes need to be established but it also has to be observed that there is actually very little detail in the Plan as to how these changes are either to be introduced or managed. It refers to the changes in general terms, there is actually very little detail relating to what it expects these changes to actually be in reality. (Krogstad et al 2002) If one were to produce an analysis of the pre-2000 structure of the NHS one could conclude that it had three major problems which were not consistent with the function, structure and organisation of a typical 21st century industry a lack of national standards old-fashioned demarcations between staff and barriers between services a lack of clear incentives and levers to improve performance over-centralisation and disempowered patients. (Nickols 2004) One observation that is also relevant to our considerations here is the phrase â€Å"seamless interface† appears very frequently throughout the document. Although it is primarily applied to the interface between primary and secondary care, it is also, both explicitly and by implication, applied to the interface between different groups of professionals within both aspects of the service. (Rudd et al 1997) In direct consideration of our subject, we can take this to mean that there is a requirement for seamless interaction between all factions of the operating theatre staff and between them and the other professionals in the hospital. (Dixon et al 2003) Other significant milestones in the changes in the role of support staff were the introduction of the National Service Framework. These are a series of recommendations, stipulations and targets which are designed to raise the performance to the level of the best across the nation rather than to have pockets of excellence surrounded by a sea of mediocrity (White M 2005). The issues surrounding the National Service Frameworks are huge, as they collectively cover most of the major therapeutic areas in medicine. The reason for their inclusion in this particular consideration, is because of their collective impact on the role of the support staff, who have to expand their role and skills in order to comply with their requirements. It is completely impractical to consider all of the implications of the National Service Frameworks so, as a representative â€Å"sample† we will consider just one, the National Service Framework for the elderly. In distinct contrast to our comments in relation to the Griffiths Report earlier in this piece, the introduction of the National Service Frameworks could be considered nothing short of exemplary. There have been consultation periods, pre-implementation pilots and possibly most importantly, a well publicised and staged National roll-out programme which was designed to implement each of the strategies in a graded and controlled fashion with the intention of trying to ensure smooth implementation across the country. (Nickols F.2004). If we consider as an exploratory example, a small portion of the National Service Framework for the elderly Standard Two, this states that it should ensure that: Ensure that older people are treated as individuals and that they receive appropriate and timely packages of care which meet their needs as individuals, regardless of health and social services boundaries. One could perhaps reasonably hope that such aspirations would have been unnecessary, but behind the actual words are a number of other concepts that are central to our consideration to the expanding role of the support staff. The concept of â€Å"Person Centred Care† is a central precept of the Standard Two. It is described with the intention of trying to allow the elderly to feel entitled to be treated as individuals and also to allow them to retain responsibility for their own choices for their own care. The expansions of the roles of the support staff comes primarily in the adoption of the main tenet of the concept of Person Centred Care and that is the introduction of the Single Assessment Process (SAP). This recognises that there are effectively a great number of support agencies that potential can be involved to look after the needs of the elderly, both in hospital and after discharge. Prior to the introduction of the National Service Framework, it was common practice for each agency to separately make contact with the patient and make their own assessment in terms of their own distinct considerations. We shall discuss this point later in the context of insularity of specialities. The end result of this process was the fact that, very commonly, the same (or similar) facts are repeatedly elicited on different occasions with all the implications that this type of duplication has on inefficient working and waste of resources. (Fatchett A. 1998). The SAP is designed so that any member of the health care team can assemble the information in such a way and in such a format that it will be of use to the other members of the team, or for that matter any of the agencies who might have a legitimate need for the information. This particular role expansion is designed to assist in reducing the amount of red tape that appears to be an inevitable encumbrance of many of the measures that are designed to assist the elderly patient, and only appears to finish up by hampering them. (Gott M 2000). The adoption of the Single Assessment Process is no more than one example, perhaps not so much of an expansion of the role, but a realignment of the role of support staff. It is still a fairly new concept and is central to the aims of the National Service Framework that the needs and wishes of the patient should be at the heart of the whole process. Because it is new, the extent to which it can accommodate these aims and aspirations alongside the day to day practicalities of service provision still has yet to be fully assessed. (Mannion R et al 2005) In some ways, this new role expansion can be viewed in parallel with the concepts of seamless interfacing and multidisciplinary team working which we have examined elsewhere in this dissertation. Given the fact that the Single Assessment Process has only been operational since April 2004, but the move towards multidisciplinary team working and the concept of the seamless interface has been apparent and espoused for some years (Mason et al 2003). The latter were effectively translated into reality without major upheaval, one can be reasonably confident that the same will eventually be said for both the Single Assessment Process and its implications for both staff and patients. We have described this particular example of role expansion more as a realignment because, at first sight, its implications are quite subtle when compared to other examples that we shall be considering, but equally they are quite fundamental, as they impinge upon the role

Court Case Number 15: Bowers V. Hardwick (june 30, 1986) :: essays research papers

Court Case Number 15: Bowers v. Hardwick (June 30, 1986)   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In August of 1982, Michael Hardwick was charged with violating the Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy by committing that act with another adult male in the bedroom of Hardwick's home. Hardwick then brought suit in the Federal District Court, therefore challenging the constitutionality of the statute as it criminalized sodomy. Hardwick asserted that he was a practicing homosexual, that the Georgia statute, as administered by the defendants, placed him in imminent danger of arrest and that the statute for several reasons violates the Federal Constitution.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I oppose the Court of Appeals decision that Michael Hardwick's complaint was dismissed by evidence seen through rights readily identifiable in the Constitution's text involved much more that the imposition of the Justices' own choice of values on the States and the Federal Government, the Court sought to identify the nature of rights for heightened judicial protection. Such landmark court decisions as Palko v. Connecticut stated this category includes those fundamental liberties that are â€Å"implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,† such that â€Å"neither liberty nor justice would exist if any fundamental liberties were sacrificed.† In Moore v. East Cleveland, fundamental liberties are characterized as those liberties that are â€Å"deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Proscriptions against a fundamental right to homosexuals to engage in acts of consensual sodomy have ancient roots. Sodomy was a criminal offense at common law and was forbidden by the laws of the original thirteen States when they ratified the Bill of Rights. In 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, all but five of the thirty-seven States in the Union had criminal sodomy laws. In fact, until 1961, all fifty States and the District of Columbia continue to provide criminal penalties for sodomy performed in private and between consenting adults.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As his honorable Justice John Paul Stevens opinion stated, sodomy was condemned as an odious and sinful type of behavior during the formative period of the common law. That condemnation was equally damning for heterosexual and homosexual sodomy. Moreover, it provided no special exemption for married couples. The license to cohabit and to produce legitimate offspring simply did not include any permission to engage in sexual conduct that was considered a â€Å" crime against nature.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One the more prominent features of Bowers v. Hardwick involved the Georgia statute, â€Å"the presumed belief of a majority of the electorate in Georgia that homosexual sodomy is immoral and unacceptable.† The Georgia electorate enacted a law that presumably reflects the belief that all sodomy is immoral and unacceptable. Unless the Court is prepared to conclude that such a law is

recycling plastic :: essays research papers

Plastics are durable, lightweight materials that were invented in 1909. They are normally made from oil and natural gas. Using plastics to replace packaging materials such as metal and glass has allowed manufacturers to make packages that are more efficient. For example to bottle eight gallons of a beverage would take only two pounds of plastic but would take three pounds of aluminum, eight pounds of steel and 27 pounds of glass. The light weight of plastic packaging helps reduce transportation costs. It takes fewer trucks to transport plastic compared to metal or other materials. Fewer trucks mean less fuel usage and therefore less air pollution from truck exhaust.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Recycling plastic containers helps to conserve landfill space and natural resources and to cut down on pollution. Since the number of landfills continues to diminish, keeping plastic containers out of landfills is important. Plastics do not degrade in landfills. Therefore, containers you throw away will be taking up landfill space hundreds of years from now. Making plastic products from recycled plastic also reduces air and water pollution, and energy used for making plastics from raw materials. Recycled plastic is used to make products such as plastic lumber, toys, containers, carpet, fiber fill for jackets and flowerpots. There are over 1,500 products made with or packaged in recycled plastic. Such uses reduce natural resource consumption and pollution because fewer raw materials are required and less energy is needed to make recycled plastic products than to make plastic products entirely from raw materials. There are different kinds mixtures of resins that make thousands of types of plastics. Ink pens, car parts and plastic bags are all made from different resins. In order to recycle plastics, the different types must be kept separate. Therefore, plastic packages are coded to indicate the type of resin used to make them. The code numbers are found inside the chasing recycling arrows on the bottoms of containers. These numbers help you separate plastic containers for recycling collection or drop off. Uncoded plastics, such as plastic pipes, cannot be recycled but can be reused.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Recycling is a six step process. First they must be cleaned and separated by the type of plastic and by color. The first step is the most important one in the process. Colored plastics cannot be mixed with clear plastics, and plastics with different code numbers cannot be mixed together. Mixing plastics can cause entire bales to be rejected and possibly to be sent to a landfill. They are then compacted and shipped off to the processing facility.

Mcdonalds marketing principles Essay

When McDoland’s venture’s out globally they have to use important standards of marketing. The two most important things that I have noticed that got changed with McDoalds strategy is their product presentation and their advertising strategies. In some countries they sold the same product as in the USA. Countries that did this was Bulgaria, Denmark, and Oman. The reason why they had similar products is due to the similar taste that the USA and these other countries share. In countries like the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand the food is much different then in the USA. The reason being is that Culturally they have a different dietary habits then us. So in those countries they ended up doing offerings like crispy chicken, rice, and spaghetti which is important so they can cater to regions needs and taste especially when it comes to something as important as food! Also it is important to note that one of McDonald’s great models is to standardize their popular items here and make it taste and looks the same whether its in Singapore, Spain or South Africa website. McDonald’s also has to be adaptive when it comes to building their franchises in other countries in order to gain success. Therefore the concept of â€Å"think global, act local† has been clearly adopted by McDonald’s and it is all over there international websites. One last thing to add about product development is the Indian website. In that country they had to rethink the way that they presented and processed their food according to the Indians tastes, value system, lifestyle, language, and perception. Mostly in all countries everyone loves their traditional hamburgers which are prepared from beef and pork. Since Indians don’t eat pork, McDonalds had to rethink their strategy which was to introduce chicken, lamb, and fish to satisfy the Indian Market. When it comes to advertising they use a wide array of advertisement. In the United Kingdom they like to use a lot of sports figures to promote their products. In France used a soccer player to boost their sales. And it seems to be working by standardizing their brand name, but at the same time making their advertisement decisions based on the â€Å"local culture†. Another great example of this is in Malaysia. Malaysia has a great up and coming young generation so McDonald’s could probably not have had the success they have  experienced without them focusing on the younger audience to younger generations of consumer. So to make in that market McDonalds is trying to invest heavily in tv marketing and aims it at children. Overall McDolands employed a great marketing strategy that focused on making sure that their products fulfilled the demands of the consumer and region base and made sure to keep them satisfied to have them keep on wanting to come back.

Representation of Partition of India in Sunlight on a Broken Column, Ice-Candy Man, and 1947 Earth

Partition of India, which is almost overlooked in traditional historiography with India’s Independence and Birth of Pakistan, led to one of the largest and bloodiest migrations in the history of the world. Sunlight on a Broken Column, Ice-Candy Man and 1947 Earth are all set in the same time span and portray Partition in quite different ways. Different as in not only different from each other, but also different, more significantly, from the way it is portrayed in traditional historiography. Traditional historiography merely gives facts and figures without examining all its social, political, economical, cultural and psychological effects. Also, it is largely governed by national biases and hence, tends to sweeps under the carpet anything that projects a negative image of the nation or raises a finger at its pet ideologies. Hence, it not only fails to give a true picture but is also, incapable of examining â€Å"why? † or linking the past with the present as in bringing out the relevance of it as of now. The above three texts, to a lesser or greater extent do precisely that, as in question the traditional historiography. And, I think that’s where their merits lie. Sunlight on a Broken Column which focuses chiefly on how it was an era of changes and change whether it be for good or for bad cannot occur without pain examines the causes of partition most effectively. Not only was it the end of colonial rule, resulting into a power struggle between Hindus and Muslims (with Muslims having ruled over India for centuries before British and the Hindu dominated Congress gaining power after them) but, it also marked the end of feudalism which is very significant as in it brings to light the power struggle that occurred amongst Hindus and Muslims themselves. A society based on class (feudal lords) was being replaced to that governed by caste (Congress, Muslim league). That is, change or reversal of Power roles occurred not just at a political level between Hindus and Muslims or British and Indians (as in colonial India) but, also at a social level amongst the Hindus as well as amongst the Muslims themselves. To quote from the text: â€Å"For times had changed sadly since the integration of the Princely States, and Their Highnesses were left with itles, no states, reduced incomes and unchanged habits and tastes, To play polo, entertain, race, drink, flirt or fornicate with the proper air of aristocratic nonchalance needed co-operation between those who had the means and those who had the titles. † Also, psychologically, it brings out the conflict between modernity and tradition as in the Laila, â€Å"I felt I lived in two worlds; an observer in an outside world, and solitary in my own†¦. Because on one hand was the very strong urge to cling to all that was Indian as in not imported or forced on by the British while, on the other hand was the need and desire to break free from the old, rotten customs. Or in other words, an individual’s cultural identity was being questioned. Which, on summing up gives a very different cause of the riots and the massacre, as in it was â€Å"A resistance to change that changed everything†. That is, contrary to what we would like to believe, British might be one of the several reasons but, they are certainly not the only ones to blame. The causes were manifold and lay very much within India. Divide and rule policy of British was not the only reason. This fact is also brought out through Saleem’s character in the text. Saleem believed and blamed the divide and rule policy of British initially but, later his opinions changed he blamed the Congress leaders (very much Indian! ) instead and himself become a supporter of the Muslim League. Partition did not occur all of a sudden but, it was a gradual process that occurred at all levels, most importantly, inside the minds of people! Talking about the implications, it happens to be the only text among the all three which talks of breaking up of families (or partition within them) due to the geographical partition of India. It also brings out the economical implication as in loss of property due to evacuee property being allotted to refugees by having to not only move out of the old zenana but, also sell it and the bitterness caused in Aunt Siara because of it. Besides, by writing about the partition chiefly in the last section as a retrospect which has a very strong sense of nostalgia running through it she emphasizes the fact that the past won’t ever return but, won’t ever be forgotten as it’s effects are everlasting and especially for those who suffered in partition (loss of near and dear ones etc) tomorrows will always be yesterdays. But, on the negative side it is very much a Pro India, Pro Gandhi novel, a very very strongly biased text. For eg, it kind of patronizes the Muslims who stayed in India while, calling those who left â€Å"traitors†. Also, the novel manipulates the readers’ sympathies towards the characters very effectively which in turn are linked to the ideologies they stand for. For eg, in the arguments between Kemal and Saleem one tends to clearly sympathize with Kemal, same with Laila vs Zahra and also, Laila vs Nadeera (towards the end). And, most importantly, Asad who is portrayed as someone to be looked up to and respected stands for the Gandhian ideology. The novel ends with a kind of moral preaching by Asad, and Laila, a confused person who follows no particular ideology accepting him and embracing his ideology. Towards ‘the end’, there is the sense that the Gandhian Ideology wins. Perhaps coz she’s trying to imply that now it’s the only possible solution to the problem left. But, most importantly of all, the abduction of women is very marginally mentioned and ‘women’s recovery camp’ is only indirectly hinted to in an otherwise feminist text. Though, she does question patriarchal power system by the character of Sita. Unlike the Ramayana’s Sita, this Sita stays by her own personal choice with Ravana and questions Ram’s ideology by saying, â€Å"I think it is the sense of possession in a man that is hurt, not his sense of morality†. But, it’s quite indirect not an obvious link. On the whole, through Sunlight on a Broken Column, Attia Hosain presents a more or less complete picture of Partition and fills up a lot many gaps in traditional historiography and though indirectly, questions almost all of its basic assumptions. Ice-Candy Man chiefly focuses on the basic animal instincts in men which are brought out effectively by the character of the Ice-Candy Man itself. He doesn’t come across as a positive character yet, Lenny likes him! Even after he abducts ayah and ill treats her, Lenny sympathizes with him. She says she can see him as Godmother sees him treacherous, dangerous†¦. but, yet she considers him harmless! With the novel written in first person and the fact we see everything from Lenny’s perspective, this is significant. That is, we identify with Lenny who in turn identifies with ice-candy man (a royal bastard! ) whom we hate!!! A wonderful irony on human nature!! And, this perhaps can be seen as one possible reason for partition. Also, the novel is terribly biased against politicians. Sidhwa lashes out on politicians especially Indians though there is an indirect sarcasm at Pakistanis as well. And, Ice-Candy Man is a kind of politician or rather the bridge between the common man and cold, calculating, icy politicians. Its portrayal of the suffering of women and ‘abducted’ women’s recovery camp in its full complexities unlike the other texts, is quite meritious. Ayah is abducted and converted into a prostitute; the women in Ranoo’s village are tortured like hell so, much that they prefer death to it. Hamida, is recovered but, her family refuses to accept her. Lenny just can’t bring herself to terms with it: â€Å"Hamida was kidnapped by the Sikhs†, says Godmother seriously. On serious matters I can always trust her to level with me. â€Å"She was taken away to Amritsar. Once that happens, sometimes, the husband-or his family-won’t take her back. † â€Å"Why? It isn’t her fault she was kidnapped! † â€Å"Some folk feel that way-they can’t stand their women being touched by other men. † It’s monstrously unfair: but Godmother’s tone is accepting. I think of what Himat-Ali -alias- Hari once told me when I reached to lift a tiny sparrow that had tumbled from its nest on our veranda. â€Å"Let it be,† he’d stopped me. the mother will take care of it. If our hands touch it, the other sparrows will peck it to death. † â€Å"Even the mother? † I asked. â€Å"Even the mother! † he’d said. It doesn’t make sense – but if that’s how it is. It is. But, though it stresses on women’s suffering, it doesn’t quite question the patriarchal not ions of power and treatment of women as passive victims. No where does it question the use of women's identities and bodies as symbols of community honor and ‘tradition' that makes them targets of violence during sectarian conflicts. It elaborates equally well on the women’s recovery operation and even accepts that it can’t wipe out the past or truly ‘recover’ them, but doesn’t quite question the purpose of it all. This is probably, because the only female character that emerges very strong is Godmother’s but, the power and authority that she exercises is very patriarchal in nature. Lenny’s mother is portrayed as a very feminine character but, she cannot save Ayah from Ice-Candy Man. Though towards the end she says, Give me the (mystic) wine that burns all veils, The wine by which life’s secret is revealed. The wine whose essence is eternity. The wine which opens mysteries concealed. Lift up the curtain, give me power to talk. And make the sparrow struggle with the hawk. – Iqbal The sparrow or the women has to struggle with the hawk or the men in order to survive!! Apart from these, she highlights how religion had transformed (or probably still is) from being a faith or a belief to a weapon. â€Å"One man’s religion is another man’s poison. † Also, unlike the other two texts, this isn’t staged in one country only, though indirectly (through Ranoo) but, it does go to India. Also, there is an indirect mention of Bengal as in Gandhi’s fasting stops riots from reaching Bihar (though Sunlight on a Broken Column too deals with partition at the Bengal border and that too more directly). Besides, at a domestic level, it shows breaking up of families due to death of some members in riots, as in Ranoo’s family. Socially and culturally it well portrays division of people into Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and hence, the colours in the park are gone. As for biases, it is clearly a Pro Parsee, Pro Pakistani novel. Parsees emerge miraculously unaffected by everything on the contrary they are the ones who at times set things right. Lenny’s mother and aunt help their neighbors get petrol, Godmother manages to get Ayah released from the captive of Ice-Candy Man within a fortnight, which had it not been for her would have been consigned to the ingenious bureaucratic eternity of a toddler nation greenly fluttering its flag – with a white strip to represent its minorities. And, though Sidhwa makes a desperate attempt to sit over the fence it collapses in the dinner table scene n epigraph when she blames the British. And, it is very much governed by Political Biases. It is clearly pro Jinnah, and lashes out on Gandhi without quite justifying. On the whole, it brings out the power dynamics and links it well to the basic human tendencies. 1947 Earth focuses on the loss of innocence through the transformation of Dilnavaaz from a common man to a sadistic, cold blooded criminal. It too highlights the basic animal instincts in men. Dilnavaaz says, â€Å"Santabibi, yeh sirf Hindu aur Musalman ki baat nahi hai. Yeh to kuch hum sab he andar hai. Hindu, Musalman, Sikh hum sab haramzadey hain. Sab janwar. Chidyaghar ke us sher ki tarah jissey Lenny baby itna darti hain. Kaisey pada rehta hai is intazar main†¦. ke pinjra khuley aur jab pinjra khulta hai to Aalah he malik hai. † And, then he asks Shantabibi to marry him saying, â€Å"tumhara sath hoga to yeh janwar hai jo yahan merey andar woh kaboo mein rahega. † And when she doesn’t marry him, he abducts her which, brings out the fact women are made victims of men’s hatred and jealousy. Also, it is brings out the psychological implications of the partition very well. The sense of insecurity and fear runs through out the movie. For example, the car scene, the surrounding by the mob at the end etc. Besides, it shows Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Parsees all equally affected. And, even questions though indirectly as to what religion is when, Lenny’s father comments on the marriage and conversion of Papoo to Christian saying, â€Å"good move, anyways, Hindu Gods don’t count much for the happenings in Lahore this days. † Most importantly, unlike the other two texts, it links it very well with the present and brings out the relevance wonderfully. At the end, what happened to Ayah isn’t clearly stated, Deepa Mehta leave a question mark there but, says, mainey apni Ayah ko us din ke baad kabhi nahi dekha , 1947 ke us din ke bad jab mainey apni Ayah ke sath apney vajud, apney dil ka ek hissa hamesha ke liye kho diya tha† Dissmissing the question on her fate as whatever it was, was obviously tragic and hopeless and instead linking it to our identity and finally, questioning the audience w ith the song, â€Å"Ishwar, Allah†¦. † Because, more than 50 years have passed since partition, and yet the riots haven’t really stopped! Partition was more than anything birth of Hindu-Muslim hatred which will probably never die. As for demerits, it’s a pro India, pro Hindu novel. It’s silent politically, but, openly blames the British without really examining the causes. It is also silent on the women’s recovery operation. Besides, it doesn’t talk of the partition on the Bengal border. But, on the whole, Deepa Mehta has packed a lot in the 3-hour movie and brought the relevance of the partition literature well. Looking at all three texts, simultaneously, I personally, feel Sunlight on a Broken Column questions the traditional historiography at almost all levels unlike Ice-Candy Man and 1947 Earth. So, going by the criteria of questioning traditional historiography, it portrays the Partition of India best. Though even 1947 Earth and Ice-Candy Man do it but, to a lesser extent. 1947 Earth highlights the massacre and suffering and stresses more on the psychological impact and relevance as of date but, it doesn’t question that many or even that far the assumptions of traditional historiography. Ice-Candy Man on the other hand focuses on the ill-treatment of women very well, but, it doesn’t quite question the patriarchal power system and its assumptions.

Automatic Controls for Any Process

Chapter 5Automatic ControlsAutomation plays a really critical function in the development and promotion of any system. Automatic control refers to the control of any procedure, device or a system utilizing automatic agencies instead than manual control. Automation a system is done to better the public presentation and to increase the productiveness of the system. Automatic control has become an built-in portion in every field whether it is industry, robotics, vehicles, power workss, etc. to increase the productiveness, public presentation and efficiency of the system control systems are used to accomplish the mechanization. Control system fundamentally refers to the interconnectedness of the constituents to configure the system to bring forth the coveted end product.5.1 Types of Control SystemThere are fundamentally two types of control systems: Figure 5.1 Basic types of Control systems Closed cringle system is good than unfastened cringle system. The control system used for this undertaking is a closed cringle electronic control unit which can command the end product of the system.5.2 Components of Control systemThere are assorted constituents of control system that includes the procedure whose end product is to be controlled, informations acquisition unit, electronic control unit and end product devices.5.2.1 ProcedureIt is the basic constituent of the control system as this is the constituent whose end product is to be controlled utilizing the automatic control. So it is required to mathematically pattern the procedure to understand the behavior of the input and so bring forth the desired and controlled end product ( Mutambara Arthur 1999 ) . Top of Form Bottom of Form5.2.2 Data Acquisition UnitIt is that unit of the system that can mensurate electrical or physical measure in the signifier of electromotive force, current, temperature, sound, etc. It by and large measures the parallel signal and so treat it utilizing signal conditioning or parallel to digital convertor. The physiological information from the detectors is send to the cardinal unit to be processed. PIC16f73 microcontroller is used as the nucleus of DAU and it performs the parallel to digital transition and so sends the processed end product signal to the end product device. PIC microcontroller is chosen as it provides the necessary functionalities needed to the user. Besides it has high velocity parallel to digital transition ability. PIC microcontroller is farther connected to liquid crystal show ( LCD ) , doorbell and a motor to expose the end product. Basic constituents of DAQ unit: Figure 5.2 Components of DAQ unit ( What is data acquisition? 2014 ) Detector:Sensor is an input device used to mensurate the physiological signals like temperature, light olfactory property, etc. It is besides called transducer that converts a physical signal into measureable electrical signal. The electrical end product of the detector may be in the signifier of current, electromotive force, opposition or other electrical signal depending upon the type of detector used. In this undertaking, intoxicant detector and eye-blink detectors are used which are already discussed in the old chapter 3 and 4. DAQ Device:It is the interface between the input signal from the detector and the computing machine. It is fundamentally used to change over the linear signal coming from the detector into a digital signal which can be easy interpreted by the computing machine. Its chief map is to mensurate the parallel signal utilizing signal conditioning and so change over it into digital signifier. For this undertaking the microcontroller will move as a DAQ device and it will work on the instructions programmed in its memory. Microcontroller used in this undertaking has inbuilt parallel to digital convertor so there is no demand to link parallel to digital convertor externally. Computer System:The DAQ device is connected to the computing machine utilizing a port. The computing machine coach linking the DAQ and the computing machine system acts as a communicating nexus between the computing machine and the DAQ device for go throughing the instructions and the measured informations. In this undertaking, a plan is written in programming package ( Mikro C ) and this plan is fed into the DAQ device utilizing a microcontroller burner and a coach. This connexion between the DAQ device and computing machine is made merely for infixing the codification into it. After that there is no demand for computing machine, the device will execute its maps on its ain ( What is data acquisition? 2014 ) .5.2.3 Electronic Control unitThe electronic control unit ( ECU ) controls the fuel system, ignition system and velocity of the engine. It chiefly consists of microprocessors or microcontrollers, random entree memory ( RAM ) , read merely memory ( ROM ) and input end product devi ces. Based on the information from the input detectors, the ECU determines the end product of the electronics circuit. It is considered as the encephalon of the control system as its work is to take the signal and bring forth the automatically controlled signal required by the end product. Microcontroller serves both the intent of informations acquisition and commanding the end products of the undertaking ( Vincent T, Ciulla 2002 ) .5.2.4 Output ActuatorIt is besides known as end product device that converts the electrical signal into some physical end product. It receives the controlled signal from the electronic control unit in the signifier of electrical signal. It is the device which influences the procedure of the system physically and forces the device to bring forth the coveted end product. The actuator applicable to this undertaking is motor that is used to bespeak the end product of the system. This undertaking besides requires a control unit as the vehicle is automatically controlled in this system.5.3 Types of electronic controlThree types of electronic controls are used majorly in any system ; Figure 5.3 Types of Electronic Controls Comparison between different types of controls is given in the following tabular array based upon their characteristics and public presentation. This comparing is drawn to find the best suited type of control to be used in this undertaking. Table 5.1 Comparison between different types of controlsMicroprocessorMicrocontrollerProgrammable Logic ControlA microprocessor works as a Central Processing Unit of a general intent computing machine.It can be considered as micro computing machine as all the constituents are embedded on a individual bit.It is a specialised system designed to command the industrial procedures and machinery.I/O ports, memory, timers, interrupts, etc are non inbuilt so they are connected externally.Microcontroller has all the excess peripherals like I/O ports, memory, timers, counters, interrupts, etc are built-in inside the bit merely.It has a programmable memory to hive away specific maps like on/off control, timers, counters, arithmetic and informations handling. It has limited figure of inputs and end products.Microprocessors based systems are bulky and really much expensive as it gives really high processing velocity.These are easy available and are less bulky and much cheaper than microprocessors .PLCs are usage programmed for merely peculiar undertakings so their hardware is really dearly-won and need regular care.But its drawback is that it has really few pins that are programmable.Most of the pins of microcontroller are programmable.It is a programmable logic control and uses ladder logic for scheduling.It can merely manage a few spots of instructions as it has really less built-in memory.It has inbuilt memory so it has many spots to manage instructions.It has really small memory which can manage few instructions.It is widely used in desktop computing machines and laptop, notepads, etc due to its high processing velocity.It has moderate processing velocity so it is widely used in little control systems, contraptions like oven, telecastings, etc.It is by and large used for industrial applications for automatic control of industrial machinery, procedure etc.Slightly big size due to excess peripherals and operates above 1Ghz.Small in size and operates from really few MHzs to 30-50 Mhz.Its size varies from little, medium to really big PLC panels.Examples of microprocessors are 8085, 8086, INTEL Pentium series, etc.Examples of microcontrollers are INTEL8051, PIC16f73, PIC16F877, etc.Examples of PLC are industrial control, industrial safety applications, etc.The research worker decided to utilize the microcontroller bit for the processing of detected signals because it is little in size, cheap and consumes less power. It does non necessitate any external input/ end product ports, memory, timers or interrupts as it has all these characteristics inbuilt in its internal architecture. Higher integrating of microcontroller besides reduces the cost and size of the system which serves the basic demand of the user every bit good as the research worker. PLC based systems are really much expensive to be used for this intent ( Basics of microcontrollers 2011 ) .5.3.1 Choice of microcontroller for the undertakingAfter make up one's minding the microcontroller it is o f import to make up one's mind which microcontroller should be used in this peculiar undertaking that can outdo suit the demands of the undertaking. For this intent a comparing between different types of microcontroller is drawn in the undermentioned tabular array. Table 5.2 Comparison of Different MicrocontrollersPropertiesPIC microcontrollerMicrocontroller 8051AVRDirection SetIt is based on RISC ( Reduced direction set calculation ) . It has merely 35 set of instructions that makes its architecture easy to larn.It is based on CISC ( Complex direction set calculation ) . It has a big figure of instructions about 250 instructions.It is besides based on RISC ( Reduced direction set calculation ) but it has big direction set i.e. non-orthogonal. It has about 140 instructions.Processing SpeedIt can treat 3 million instructions per second because in 1 machine rhythm of PIC, clock frequence is divided by 4.It can treat 1 million instructions per second because in 1 machine rhythm of 8051, clock frequence is divided by 12.It can treat 12 million instructions per second because in 1 machine rhythm of AVR, clock frequence is divided by 1.ADCIts velocity of parallel to digital transition is really fast than AVR’s.It does non hold inbuilt parallel to digital convertors like PIC and AVR.Its parallel to digital transition velocity is slower than PIC.Power ingestionIt has least power ingestion.It consumes the most power out of all the three microcontrollers.It consumer higher power than PIC microcontroller.ProgramingIt is really easy programmable IC as it really easy to code.Cryptography of microcontroller 8051 is besides easy.It has really complex cryptography for novices as compared to other two microcontrollers.MemoryIt has 8k brassy memory, 368?8 byte RAM.It has 256 byte internal RAM and 4k on-chip ROM.It has 8k byte flash memory, 1k byte RAM.Cost and AvailabilityIt is easy available in market and that excessively at low cost.It is besides low lost and easy available.It is dearly-won as compared to 8051 and PIC micro accountant and handiness is besides limited.As detectors are used in this undertaking so it is better to utilize a microcontroller with built-in ADC with fast transition velocity alternatively of utilizing sepa rate ADC after every detection faculty. By maintaining this in head the research worker had studied the characteristics of assorted microcontrollers which can be used to implement the accident bar system and eventually reached to the decision of utilizing PIC ( Peripheral Interface Controller ) microcontroller. Researcher decided to utilize PIC16f73 is used in the undertaking due to its high parallel to digital transition. The pin architecture of PIC16f73 is given figure 5.4.5.4 Architecture of PIC16f73 microcontroller Figure 5.4 Architecture of microcontroller PIC16f73 ( Microchip 2002 ) It is a 28 pin IC and the coveted undertaking can be made utilizing 28 pins with 3 input end product ports. It has 192 byte RAM ( Random Access Memory ) and it is based on RISC architecture with merely 35 set of instructions. It has 8k brassy memory, 4k programmable memory and 368?8 byte RAM. It has 3 ports viz. port A, B and C. Port A consists of 5 parallel to digital channels for ADC transition. Assorted parametric quantities for choosing PIC16f73 microcontroller are listed below.Performance:PIC16f73 microcontroller which will be used in the execution of this undertaking is a 28 pin IC with 3 input-output ports. It besides has 192 bytes of RAM ( Random Access Memory ) and is based on RISC ( Reduced Instruction Set Computation ) architecture for better public presentation of the Accident Prevention System. It has much faster transition velocity of parallel to digital transition than other accountants.Power ingestion:A PIC controlled system has minimal power ingestion with good publi c presentation which is needed by the accident bar system. So this characteristic of PIC is really utile for the system being developed as the system would work on minimum power without compromising the system public presentation.Memory:The accident bar system utilizing intoxicant and oculus winking sensing can be done utilizing the built-in memory of PIC but still if the demand of memory of the system increases. PIC microcontroller besides has 4k programmable brassy memory and most of the PIC based systems are memory expandible and can spread out its memory as per use and type of application. To implement this system its built-in memory is adequate ( Bates Martin, 2011 ) .Therefore from this chapter, the control unit used for this undertaking is finalized. This chapter gives a brief overview of assorted control devices. Comparison between different control systems is drawn. The justification for taking a peculiar control unit is besides given. The short account of microcontroller u sed is besides given in this chapter. Now all the basic constituents to be used in the undertaking are decided. Therefore from the following chapter, design of circuitry and the system will be done. After that this system should be implemented and so tested.