When to share information has been developed as a cross-governmental initiative on behalf of Department of Health, Department for Children, Schools and Families, the Youth Justice Board and the Prison Service. It is set out in a pathway approach, with best practice case studies used to identify when, what, where and how information needs to be shared to ensure improved outcomes for children and young people, as outlined in Every Child Matters: Change for Children.

Each year, the Government decides how much to raise benefits and tax allowances. The basis for these upratings is rarely debated, yet has major long-term consequences for the relative living standards of different groups and for public finances. The impact of benefit and tax uprating on incomes and poverty from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation considers the implications of present uprating policies, which mean that some parts of the tax and benefit system are uprated by earnings growth, other parts by prices and some not at all.

The impact of continuance of these polices over the newxt 20 years will be a doubling of the child poverty rate alongside a substantial gain to the public finances. Some of this budgetary gain may be needed to meet other demands – of an ageing population for example – but the cost falls disproportionately onto poorer groups and could be raised more fairly.

Safer Children in a Digital World (Executive Summary) focus’ on issues including cyberbullying, violent games and web predators. Recommendations includ:

• Establishment of a UK Council for Child Internet Safety

• A clearer ratings system for video games using the recognised BBFC symbols U, 12, 15 and 18,

• A public information campaign to educate parents and children in online safety

• Strengthening the law against assisting suicides. Social networking sites should monitor discussions and intervene where young users are discussing suicide, by providing useful advice and support to people who may be looking for help.

Trends in children and young people’s care - Emergency admission statistics 1996-2006 for children and young people aged 0 -19 years over the period 1996/97 to 2006/07,  including information on trends for:

• different age groups
• selected consultant specialties most likely to be involved in the care of children and young people
• emergency admission methods
• length of stay in hospital

• Antenatal care
• Diabetes in pregnancy
• Prophylaxis for Infective Endocarditis
• Maternal and child nutrition
• Mental wellbeing of children in primary education
• Sleep apnoea hypopnea syndrome (obstructive) - continuous positive airway pressure
• Asthma (in adults) - corticosteroids
• Intraoperative nerve monitoring during thyroid surgery
• Suburethral sling insertion for stress urinary incontinence in men

Safeguarding children in whom illness is fabricated or induced - the report reviews the NHS implementation of   Safeguarding Children in Whom Illness is Fabricated or Induced (guidance issued in 2002).  It finds:

• Greater knowledge of the existence of the fabricated and induced guidance is needed amongst all NHS staff, (including paediatricians and generalists in a wide range of health services such as unscheduled care)

• More focused implementation of the guidance through better and shared multi-agency protocols and joint training

• Better management of suspected cases, both clinically and in relation to co-ordination by local authority children’s services

• Continuing personal anxiety amongst paediatricians about the implications of identifying fabricated or induced illness rightly or wrongly.

The Bercow Review of services for Children and Young People (0–19) with Speech, Language and Communication Needs - Interim Report ( Executive Summary) identifies 5 key themes:

• Communication is crucial – communication is at the core of all social interaction.  Communication is a key life skill. Communication is a fundamental human right. For some children and young people, acquiring the ability to communicate is a difficult and ongoing challenge. Just as the nature and severity of their needs will vary, so will the type and extent of the help required to address them.
• Early identification and intervention are essential in order to avoid poor outcomes for children and young people – in addressing delay and disorders, the most important facts we know are the value of early intervention and the danger of its absence. If a child receives the right help early on, he or she has a better chance of tackling problems, communicating adequately and making progress. If a child does not benefit from early intervention, there are multiple risks – of lower educational attainment, of behavioural problems, of emotional and psychological difficulties, of poorer employment prospects and, in some cases, of a descent into criminality.
• A continuum of services, designed around the family, is needed – universal, targeted and specialist services are required to meet the range of needs and, as the Government envisages in its recent Children’s Plan, children, young people and their families must be at their heart.
• Joint working is critical – in planning, commissioning and delivering universal, targeted and specialist provision, it is critical that health services and children’s services, including schools, work together in support of children and young people with SLCN. No single agency can deliver any one of the five Every Child Matters outcomes for children and young people by working in isolation. Separate silos produce misunderstandings, cause divisions and can be bewildering or infuriating to parents for whose children services are delayed or denied as a result.
• The current system is characterised by high variability and a lack of equity – the current system is routinely described by families as a “postcode lottery”, particularly in the context of their access to speech and language therapy (SLT).

The new updated Child Health Promotion Programme : Pregnancy and the first five years of life (CHPP) builds on the children’s National Service Framework and is intended to provide preventative services tailored to the individual needs of children and families, acting as a best practice guide for children’s services.

It aims to:

• provide greater emphasis on promoting the health and well-being of children in the early stages – pregnancy and the first five years of life
• support a model of progressive universalism – a core programme for all children, with additional services for children and families with particular needs and risks
• encourage partnership working between different agencies on local service development (e.g. general practice and children’s centres)
• focus services on changing public health priorities - obesity, breast feeding, social and emotional development

The CHPP is a valuable tool for supporting commissioners to meet obligations on breast-feeding, obesity prevention, infant mortality and the 12-week antenatal assessment. This high quality programme will help meet these vital requirements, but also help to improve general health and well-being among children and families in the community.

Hit or Miss - women’s rights report from ActionAid shows that promises made by the world’s governments to tackle poverty are failing to deliver because the basic rights of women in the developing world are being ignored.  The report finds that women and girls formed the majority of the poor and hungry, and, in south Asia, women are getting a shrinking share of income as the economy continues to grow. Ten million more girls than boys miss out on primary school, while African women accounted for 75% of all young people living with HIV/Aids.

House of Commons International Development Committee (2008) Maternal Health: Fifth Report of Session 2007–08,Volume I: Report, together with formal minutes. London: The Stationery Office  identifies that less progress has been made on maternal health than in any of the other goals for 2015 set by the UN. The report calculates that in any 24 hour period about 1,500 women will have died giving birth. Almost all the deaths will have been in the world’s 75 poorest countries. Most would have been preventable in more affluent nations.  It establishes that the true number of deaths might be 50% higher than the official estimates: with perhaps as many as 870,000 women die annually in the days around birth. For every death, another 30 women are reckoned to be left in some way disabled. In sub-Saharan Africa things are actually getting worse.

Slender budgets - and not just in health - fail to reflect women’s needs. In Bangladesh, educating girls has been the key to reducing maternal deaths. Educated young women are more likely to seek antenatal care, and more likely to give birth in clinics.

Governments must adress the shortage of midwives and reward staff for working in those backwaters where they are currently reluctant to locate

Improving access to abortion, and above all to contraception, could, the MPs point out, save thousands of women a year.

Oral and written evidencerecieved can be seen in House of Commons International Development Committee (2008) Maternal Health: Fifth Report of Session 2007–08,Volume II: Oral and written evidence. London: The Stationery Office.

Established in 2005, the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) weighs and measures children in reception (aged 4 to 5 years) and year 6 (aged 10 to 11 years) to assess overweight and obese levels. In 2006/2007, 876,416 primary school children were measured (80 per cent of those eligible). Almost one in four five-year olds and one in three 11-year olds is overweight or obese, according to the national child measurement programme. Rates of obesity are worst in the North East, West Midlands and London, the NHS Information Centre’s NCMP NCMP 2006/07 bulletin report said.

• NCMP 2006/07 online database
• NCMP 2006/07 data tables

How to set and monitor goals for prevalence of child obesity follows on from the Government’s obesity strategy  Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: a Cross-Government Strategy for England.  It provides advice to PCTs and local authorities on how to set child obesity goals as part of the Vital Signs and the National Indicator Set.

‘Better Care: Better Lives: Improving outcomes and experiences for children, young people and their families living with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions’ aims to improve the care and support given to children in England with life-limiting or life-threatening condition and their families. The strategy calls on commissioners, service providers, voluntary sector partners – to improve the experiences of young people and their families by:

• improving data sources

• building stronger joint working arrangements

• developing better needs assessments and support regimes

• tackling inequalities

• encouraging the delivery of care in the most appropriate setting.

Infant Feeding Survey 2005: A commentary on infant feeding practices in the UK provides national estimates of breastfeeding incidence and prevalence as well as capturing data on other aspects of infant feeding, such as the use of breastmilk substitutes and information about weaning practices. In addition, the survey collects information about the type and quality of antenatal and postnatal support available for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. The survey thus identifies potential strengths and weaknesses that exist in the implementation of current infant feeding policy, uncovering for attention those areas in which mothers lack support

The survey recommends

• Promotion of breastfeeding needs to be tailored according to the social group. Attempts should continue to be made to increase the awareness of breastfeeding among young and low-income mothers by discussing infant feeding during pregnancy and providing support in tackling practical barriers to breastfeeding.

• Raising awareness of the health risks associated with not breastfeeding is crucial
  if mothers are to make informed infant feeding decisions. An emphasis on the
  benefits of exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months, in conjunction with
  advice to delay introduction of solids until around six months is required.

• Further practical support which helps mothers to wait until six months, and an appropriate change in the labelling of weaning foods would be beneficial.

• Inequalities in access to antenatal and postnatal care are apparent. Identifying sub-groups of women who do not use maternal health services is key to improving policy adherence. There is a need to make antenatal and postnatal services more accessible for women from hard-to-reach groups and encourage them to use these services more frequently.

• Hospitals should facilitate practices conducive to breastfeeding, such as initiating breastfeeding soon after birth and encouraging close contact between mother and baby. All hospitals should have a written breastfeeding policy that is communicated and implemented.

• All women and their families should also be given information about availability
  and access of postnatal care in their local community, and health professionals working in the community need to ensure that infant feeding advice and support is widely available for mothers who require it.

• The Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) sets rigorous standards for health care organisations to adopt, with the aim of improving breastfeeding rates. Further encouragement should be given to all health care providers, both hospital and community, to implement a structured programme such as the BFI. All health professionals should be made aware of the NICE guidance on postnatal care.

• There is a need to encourage training of health professionals in practical management of breastfeeding support and to maintain relevant skills.

• Provision of infant feeding facilities in both work and public places should be encouraged in order to welcome breastfeeding mothers and establish breastfeeding as the norm.

• Parallel to the promotion and support of breastfeeding practices, there is a need to provide clear, independent professional advice on infant formula and follow-on formula, particularly among hard-to-reach groups of mothers.

• It is vital that all parents and carers who choose to give their babies infant formula are offered appropriate and tailored advice on formula feeding, to ensure this is undertaken as safely as possible.

• All health professionals working with children, pregnant women and mothers, should as part of their training, be informed of the importance of vitamin supplementation during pregnancy and breastfeeding, particularly with regard to vitamin D and folic acid.

• Forthcoming NICE guidance for primary care on Maternal and Child Nutrition in low-income families, implementation of which will help to promote improved infant feeding practices.

Children on bullying report summarises research on children’s views on bullying, defining what bullying is and what to do about it. There are both worrying messages and hopeful signs among the varied responses.

It covers children living away from home in England (in children’s homes, boarding schools, residential special schools, residential further education colleges, foster care, adoption placements or residential family centres), those who are getting help of any sort from the children’s social care services of their local council and care leavers.

 New Trans wellbeing and healthcare documents from the Department of Health.

Medical care for gender variant children and young people: answering families’ questions provides answers to the questions typically asked by parents of gender variant children and young people (up to the age of 17). It helps families to understand about gender variance and gives some suggestions about how to respond.

NHS funding processes and waiting times for adult service-users will help you understand the processes involved in obtaining funding for treatment for gender variant conditions. It answers the questions that service-users typically ask, and it provides guidance on how to navigate this complex system with minimum delay.

A Northwest Framework - to achieve healthy weight for children and families within the context of food & nutrition and physical activity aims to to define and progress the contribution regional organisations can make to achieve the Public Service Agreement (PSA) to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people.

This report intends to bring coherence to the regional role in achieving children’s healthy weight, within the context ofthe family and wider society. It brings together the many stakeholders, it provides governance arrangements, systems and processes to provide effective planning and delivery as well as creating opportunities for innovative developments.

Also mapped are the inter-relationship between different themes and organisations contributing to obesity and the contribution of food & nutrition and physical activity These Alliances describe how organisations can be grouped to work on particular themes, contributing and strengthening regional delivery.

A study of attitudes and behaviour to inform the development and promotion of outdoor activities from the Scout Association is a study of young people and parents that highlights how eight million young people between the ages of 7-18 (89%) spend far less time engaged in physical activity per week than is recommended by the Department of Health.

As a result a campaign will be focussed at www.kidsoutdoors.com where the emphasis will be on user-generated content such as blogs, video and images of activities, that demonstrate just how fun and easy outdoor activity can be in a safe and secure environment.

Feverish illness in young children: in association with NICE, Urinary incontinence in women: in association with NICE, and Prostate cancer risk management: in association with the NHS Cancer Screening Programmes,
are interactive case histories packed with pictures and videos it giving evidence-based guides to their management from BMJ Learning.

Alternatively give these Just in time Urology modules a whirl. Just in time modules are fast, evidence based updates giving the essentials on everyday conditions.

Scrotal swellings: diagnosis and management

Chronic prostatitis: diagnosis and treatment

To use BMJ Learning you’ll need your Athens password from the NHS. (If you work in the North West and don’t have an NHS Athens Password this link will let you apply for one)

If you need training in the use of electronic resources and you work for Liverpool PCT use the contact form below to contact the library.

The Implementation plan for reducing health inequalities in infant mortality: a good practice guide is about delivering the recommendations and themes of the Health Inequalities Infant Mortality PSA Target Review (February 2007).  Building on the key interventions in the review, it shows how to narrow the health inequalities gap in infant mortality by looking at current examples of good practice. The actions in this plan will contribute to meeting the target, and improving infant and child health for all disadvantaged groups.