Submissions

Author Guidelines

Guideline for Manuscript Preparation
Manuscripts should be typed using double-spacing (except tables which should be single-spaced) with margins of at least 2.5 cm (1 inch). 

• Original report– up to 2500 words within up to 3 figures or tables
• Review– up to 1500 words with up to 5 figures or tables. A review of a topic relevant to the theme of the journal, of interest to healthcare professionals and educationalists at all levels and across all specialities and written with a clinical and educational perspective. May be submitted unsolicited.
• Commentaries– Short communication (up to 1500 words) which describes evidence based innovation in an area of clinical and educational practice.
• Case reports - Short reports (up to 1500 words) which are unique or can be used to illustrate a point of quality or safety improvement.
• Letters to the editors in chief - Up to 500 words in response to content published in METRIC or topics of interest.
• Education - Usually commissioned. Manuscript written in the style of an educational piece, with relevance to quality and safety improvement.

Statements of ethical approval for studies involving human subjects and/or animals

If your study involves human subjects and/or animals, and also if your manuscript includes case reports/case series, you need to provide the following:

• Authors must provide the name of the ethical approval committee/Institutional Review Board they have obtained consent from along with the approval number/ID.
• Authors should specifically mention if a waiver was obtained for the study and reason for the waiver. They should confirm that the study was conducted in accordance with Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2013.
• Authors must state that written informed consent was obtained from the participants of the study (and the relevant document(s) must be provided when requested by the journal). If verbal informed consent was obtained, the reason(s) for the absence of written consent must be provided.
• For case reports/case series involving minor subjects/children/infants, authors should confirm that the statements of written informed consent from legally authorized representatives/parents/guardians are available; if verbal informed consent was obtained, reasons for this must be mentioned.
• Since patients have a right to privacy, identifying information (including patients’ images, names, initials, or hospital numbers) should not be included in recordings, written descriptions, or photographs, unless the information is essential for scientific purposes. In any case, written informed consent from the patient must be obtained for publication of these graphics in print and electronic form. If such consent has not been obtained, personal details of patients in any part of the paper and in any supplementary materials (including illustrations) must be removed before submission.

Title page

The first page of the manuscript should contain the following information:

A short title not exceeding 45 characters for use as a running header

Full names of authors, affiliations, email address and including relevant titles

Names of the institutions where the research was conducted

Full name, email address and any title of corresponding author

Abstract

All papers should be accompanied by an abstract of up to 200 words. The abstract should reflect the content of the paper including methods used, results, and conclusions drawn.

Text

This should be divided into sections with the headings:

• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion

Practice Points
Up to 5 short bullet points which summarise the key messages of the manuscript should be included in a box at the end of the manuscript.

Notes on Contributors
All manuscripts should be accompanied by a Declaration from authors confirming that they have participated sufficiently in the conception, design and analysis of the work.  Contributors also take responsibility for the integrity and accuracy of the manuscript submitted.

Short biographical notes on each contributor to a maximum of 50 words per contributor should be included.

Glossary Terms

If you feel that there are terms or concepts central to your paper that the reader may not be familiar with, please include definition of these terms, giving a reference.

References
References should be in Vancouver style; the numerical ISO 690.
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/library/subjectsandsupport/referencemanagement/vancouver

Graphics
Please note images, graphs, and figures will deteriorate with copying and pasting:

• Images, tables, Graphs and figures need to be of a high quality.
• Photographs and graphics should be in .jpg or .png format.
• Poor quality images and graphics cannot be improved during publication.
• We can reduce the size of your images, tables, and graphics but we cannot increase their size without making a negative impact on the reproduction quality.

Images created in Microsoft applications

• We can only accept images in Microsoft office documents if you have created them in: Word .DOC PowerPoint .PPT Excel .XLS and these should be copyright free.
• We cannot accept images which have been copied into a Word, PowerPoint orExcel document. Images which are copied into a document in this way have usually been reduced in size to fit the document and so lose their original clarity and resolution.

Graphics from the Web

• Graphics or images copied from the web are usually of a low quality.
• There is added concern of ownership and copyright.
• If you can provide proof that you have been granted appropriate terms of use and can supply a good quality image, then these may be considered.

Image / Graphic sizes

• The journal is laid out in A4 format with two columns running on most pages.
• Tables (Limit to 5 figures and tables in total per manuscript)
• An image/table spanning one column width = 3.5 inches, 90 millimetres, or 255 pixels wide
• An image/table spanning two column widths = 7.2 inches, 184 millimetres, or 523 pixels wide
• All images must be a minimum of 300 ppi (pixels per inch)
• Quality 10 or higher in the Photoshop ‘Save As’ options
• Maximum file size of 2Mb is recommended
• X4 images per Manuscript