The implications for practice are discussed and recommendations for further research are made.

Recent surveys show that children are still restricted from visiting their critically ill family and friends on many adult intensive care units throughout the country. The purpose of this small-scale exploratory pilot study was to examine and describe the experiences and perceptions of trained nurses towards children visiting within this setting. The aim of the study was to gain greater insight and understanding into the reason why, despite evidence to support the benefits to children of visiting their critically ill family and friends, they remain discouraged and restricted. It is hoped that the study will act as an initial enquiry to generate themes and further research questions. A qualitative research approach was adopted and in-depth focused interviews used as a method of data collection. The participants of the study were trained nurses working on an adult intensive care unit in a district general hospital in England. A total of 12 individual interviews were conducted which were audiotaped in full and analysed using a method of thematic content analysis. The value of the research is to promote family-centred care within an adult intensive care environment to meet the neglected needs of the well children of the critically ill person. The findings suggest that the participants in the study attempted to offer valuable support to children visiting their critically ill family and friends, but, despite an open visiting policy, children rarely visited within this setting. The desire of the well parent to protect and shield the child from the crisis of critical illness was perceived by the participants to be the main reason why they did not visit. To provide family-centred care within an adult intensive care setting has many implications for practice and several of these important issues are discussed. These include the educational and training needs of nursing staff and the importance of adopting a collaborative team approach to providing care for the critically ill person and their family. The need to generate research and literature from within the United Kingdom's health care system has also been identified and recommendations for further studies are proposed.

In certain circumstances rationing by age is both morally permissible and justified. However, the capacity to benefit from treatment has to be considered whatever the age of the individual and any measure of benefit needs to take a broad range of medical, ethical and economic factors into account. If age is to be used, as a criterion to ration limited resources explicit, national guidelines need to be developed and applied consistently to ensure that arbitrary differences in the treatment older people receive does not occur.

Do parents or surrogates have the right to demand treatment deemed futile? An analysis of the case of Baby L The purpose of this discussion paper is to address and analyse the ethical issues arising from the following questions: Do parents or surrogates of newborn infants have the right to demand treatment deemed 'futile'? Should the religious beliefs of the infant's parents be given special consideration when deciding on the correct course of action? The case of Baby L, an infant born with severe disability will be used to aid the analysis. It is argued that health care providers have no obligation to provide 'futile' treatment based on the surrogates' right to autonomy, but an obligation may arise from a duty of benevolence. However, acting from a duty of benevolence can ignore considerations of justice and fairness and does not always prompt the right course of action. Any decision regarding treatment options will involve ranking the beliefs and values of the parents or surrogate against the integrity of the health care team and the interest of society as a whole. The consequences of continuing or discontinuing life-sustaining treatment for the infant, the parents and the health care team will also be considered and examined.

Despite increased awareness and training, musculoskeletal injuries within the nursing profession remain high. It has been recognised for many years that the handling and transporting of patients within the hospital environment causes problems for healthcare workers (World Health Organisation (WHO), 1983) and back injuries among hospital workers are a concern (Yassi et al, 2001). This article will focus on questions raised on the training that is provided to protect staff and patients from musculoskeletal injury, and ask the question, why do staff seem to be apathetic towards the importance of training in safe manual handling? The introduction of work-based assessors (WBAs) within our hospital is increasing awareness, but has it reduced injuries within our area?