A consultation on the framework for the registration of health and adult social care providers follows on from the previous consultation on the future regulation of health and adult social care (November 2006), and the response to that consultation, which was published in October 2007. It seeks views on: which health and adult social care services should require registration with the Care Quality Commission; and what the requirements for registration should be. It also seeks views on when providers of regulated services should be required to have a registered manager, and how primary care services should be included in the new registration system.

A partial Impact Assessment of the Scope of Registration of Primary Medical and Dental Care has been completed as part of this consultation.

Achieving Culture Change: A Policy Framework a discussion paper (from the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit) looks at how government policy can be used to encourage particular courses of action and behaviour in cases where powerful cultural factors are at work. The traditional behaviour change approach has been to use a combination of incentives, legislation and regulation in an attempt to encourage and persuade the public into adopting different forms of behaviour. Headlined today in the as Cut crime with drink tax, Gordon Brown told - The Telegraph 15th February 2008.

The paper relevant to a wide range of government objectives, including educational attainment, social mobility and opportunity, healthy living, environmental sustainability, and maintaining thriving communities and explores where cultural factors – for example our attitudes, values, aspirations and sense of self–efficacy – are pointing in the opposite direction. It sets out the state of knowledge about “culture change” and how this can be practically used to inform policy development.

Report of the National Patient Choice Survey, England - September 2007 gives the final results of around 92,000 responses to the ninth national patient choice survey commissioned to assess the implementation of choice at PCT level. It monitors patient awareness of choice and recall of having been offered a choice of hospital for their first outpatient appointment.

Findings are:

• Marginal improvement in recall of patients being offered choice of hospital for their first outpatient appointment: 45% in September, up from 43% in July but still below 48% in the March 2007 survey.
• 39% of patients were aware of choice of hospitals for their first appointment, up from 38% in July and 29% in the May/June 2006 survey.
• 64% of patients who were aware of choice recalled being offered choice, whereas 32% of those not aware of choice recalled being offered it, compared with 63% and 32% respectively in the July survey.
• 79% of patients who were offered choice were satisfied with the process and 5% were dissatisfied.
• Location or transport considerations were given most often, by 65% of patients, as an important factor when choosing a hospital.

The Links Between Diet and Behaviour: The Influence of Nutrition on Mental Health from Associate Parliamentary Food and Health Forum (FHF), an all-party independent forum for the exchange of views and information on food policy in the UK Parliament.

The report makes the following 19 recommendations:

• The Government – principally the Department of Health, the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Ministry of Justice, working with the FSA and the Medical Research Council – commission and support further research in the areas highlighted in this report.

• The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) should be asked to define further the optimum intake of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in different stages of life, especially for pregnant women and children.

• The FSA should reconsider its advice to pregnant women about fish consumption, with a view to encouraging them to eat two portions of oily fish, or the equivalent in omega-3 PUFAs, a week.

• The FSA continues to monitor closely levels of mercury, dioxin and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) in the different species of oily fish available in the UK.

• The Royal Medical Colleges and the GMC consider upgrading the role of nutrition in the medical curriculum.

• Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) should increase the number of posts for dietitians working in the community and that GP practices should be fully reimbursed if  they employ a dietitian to whom patients can be referred for nutritional advice.

• The Government should take further action to raise public awareness of the significance of good nutrition in pregnancy and to tackle the incidence of low birth-weight in the UK.

• More research to test the effect of selected essential fatty acids on the cognitive skills, mood and behaviour of both “healthy” children (that is, children suffering from no known disorders), as well as children suffering from a range of behavioural disorders should be undertaken.

• Regulations should be introduced to prohibit all artificial colours and on-essential preservatives in food products and soft drinks.

• The Government should include financial support to School Breakfast Clubs as part of the package set up to improve school meals. We strongly recommend that all children entitled to free school lunches should be entitled also to a free school breakfast whose content, like school lunches, should be subject to quantified nutritional standards.

• The Department of Health encourages NHS Trusts to adopt an approach similar to that pursued by the Doncaster and South Humber Healthcare NHS Trust which undertakes a nutritional assessment of patients suffering from depression and patients with early symptoms of psychosis and provides dietary advice to them.

• Consideration of the outcome of the next trial of nutritional supplements in Young Offender Institutes should be a priority for the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) given that our prisons are overcrowded and there is continuing concern about the mental health of prisoners, particularly young offenders at risk of self-harm and suicide.

• Aany dietary intervention that can be used to improve the behaviour and mental well-being of offenders held in custody should be given serious consideration by the NOMS.

• NOMS should look positively at the case for introducing nutrient-based standards for meals in prisons, similar to those introduced for schools, but based on recommended daily intakes for adults.

• Effective measures should be taken in all prisons to inform prisoners about the benefits of a good diet and to enable them to make healthy choices both while they are in custody and after their release.

• In all women’s prisons national nutritional standards should be introduced to ensure that the basic dietary needs of pregnant women prisoners are achieved.

• More research is urgently needed in the area of nutrition and behaviour because of the major potential benefit for the fields of education, crime, health and the well-being of vulnerable sections of society and we recommend that the Government devotes more resources to this, especially in corrective institutions and care homes.

• Department of Health messages on a healthy diet should emphasise the importance of a balanced diet for optimum mental as well as physical health.

• While research continues to identify and produce alternative sources of omega-3 PUFAs, the report recommends that all people in the UK should be encouraged to eat more fish, some of which should be oily fish, or its equivalent in omega-3 PUFAs.

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The Health of the Nation report from CACI and TNS

The HealthACORN classification groups the GB population into 4 groups, 25 types and 60 sub-types. By analysing diet, health and exercise characteristics as well as demographic attributes, HealthACORN provides an in-depth understanding of different communities in every part of the country. The classification names and descriptions have been chosen to be simple and non-judgemental. The Health ACORN Methodology is described in this ducument.

HealthACORN looks at the mix of people within a neighbourhood and identifies four broad kinds of area:

• Group 1 - Existing Problems: High levels of serious illness and poor diet and consumption patterns
• Group 2 - Future Problems: High levels of severely unhealthy lifestyles likely to lead to serious illness
• Group 3 - Possible Future Concerns: Generally good health but with some potentially unhealthy lifestyle traits
• Group 4 - Healthy: Good health with few lifestyle issues

The following documents rank Local Authorities using HealthACORN.

Local Authority Rank - Existing Problems

Local Authority Rank - Future Problems

Local Authority Rank - Possible Future Concerns

Local Authority Rank - Healthy

Health ACORN Types by Local Authority

The image search on the National Library for Health is a cross database image search searching the following sources:

• DermIS

DermIS.net is the largest dermatology information service available on the internet. It offers elaborate image atlases (DOIA and PeDOIA) complete with diagnoses and differential diagnoses, case reports and additional information on almost all skin diseases.

• Gray’s Anatomy

The Bartleby.com edition of Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body features 1,247 vibrant engravings—many in color—from the classic 1918 publication, as well as a subject index with 13,000 entries ranging from the Antrum of Highmore to the Zonule of Zinn.

• DermNet NZ

DermNet is the website of the New Zealand Dermatological Society Incorporated. We aim to present authoritative facts about the skin for consumers and health professionals. The site was launched in March 1996.

• Trauma.org

Largest Internet Trauma Care Site - Covers all aspects of injury prevention, evaluation and management. Includes an email Discussion group, Conference listings, Trauma Imagebank, Fellowship database. Home of Trauma Moulage on the Internet.

• ECG Library

12-lead ECG library Homepage. A collection of electrocardiograms. Learn electrocardiography by seeing examples of the various abnormalities.

• Virtual Pediatric Hospital

Virtual Pediatric Hospital is a digital library of pediatric information

• images.MD

images.MD compiles over 50,000 high-quality images spanning all of internal medicine, all derived from Current Medicines renowned series of illustrated atlases. Each image is accompanied by detailed and informative text written by over 2,000 contributing experts.

For bestuse of the search you’ll need your NHS Athens password.(To get an NHS Athens Password if you work for the NHS in the North West)If you want training in using this or any other e-resources contact the library using the form below:

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Website

Text only. No markup allowed.

This paper reports the findings of the evaluation of the Supporting People Health Pilots programme, which was established to demonstrate the policy links between housing support services and health and social care services by encouraging the development of integrated services. The paper highlights the challenges of working across housing, health and social care boundaries.

The challenges of joint working: lessons from the Supporting People Health Pilot evaluation
Ailsa Cameron, Geraldine Macdonald, William Turner, Liz Lloyd

The Health profile of England 2007 provides a collation of national and regional data to provide a baseline against which people can compare data from their own Local Health Profile (LHP). The 2007 report updates tables showing regional comparisons and national trends for indicators presented in LHP, as well as a wide ranging snapshot of public health and well-being in England and a section on international comparisons.

• A general improvement in health outcome
  The report shows recent improvements in a number of critical areas, e.g.:
  • declining mortality rates in targeted killers (cancers, all circulatory diseases and suicides)
  • increasing life expectancy, now at its highest ever level
  • reducing infant mortality, now at its lowest ever level

Challenges remain to achieve and sustain progress, e.g.:
• rising rates of diabetes

• Similarly for the determinants of health,
  • Improvements in some important areas, e.g.:
  • the number of people who smoke
  • quality of housing stock
  • Areas of concern, e.g.:
  • increasing levels of obesity in adults and children
  • high levels of teenage pregnancy
• Health inequalities are often present
  • The report illustrates various geographical inequalities across the UK
• International comparisons give a wider context presenting national progress in comparison to countries of the European Union (EU), or to the 15 countries that were members of the EU prior to 2004 (EU-15), e.g.:
  • Premature mortality rates from the two biggest killers, circulatory diseases and cancer, are reducing faster in England than the average for the EU
  • Death rates from motor vehicle traffic accidents in the United Kingdom are amongst the lowest in EU
  • The prevalence of obesity in England is the highest in the EU
  • Death rates for chronic liver disease and cirrhosis have risen markedly, particularly since the mid-1990s, and for females, latest data show England has risen above the EU-15 average
  • The percentage of all live births to mothers under age 20 in the United Kingdom remains the highest when compared to other EU-15 countries.

You can see the mass media’s take on this report on 23rd October 2007.

The Specialist Library for Ethnicity and Health provides links best available evidence about specific needs in health care for minority ethnic groups and the management of a health care service in a multicultural, diverse society.

Divided into Diseases and Conditions, Service Delivery, Service Sector, Cultural Competence and Management and Policy Statistics, the contents are easily accessible.