Report of a National Review of NHS Health Library Services In England: From Knowledge To Health In The 21st Century identifies four key purposes for health library services

• Clinical decision making by patients, their carers as appropriate, and health professionals
• Commissioning decision and health policy making
• Research
• Lifelong learning by health professionals.

So bedtime reading for the Fade crew…..

‘Drugs: protecting families and communities’ - 2008-2018 strategy and the Action plan 2008-2011 from the Home Office offers a four strand approach to tackling use of drugs of abuse:

• protecting communities through tackling drug supply, drug-related crime and anti-social behaviour
• preventing harm to children, young people and families affected by drug misuse
• delivering new approaches to drug treatment and social re-integration
• public information campaigns, communications and community engagement

It’s key policies are:

• embedding action to tackle drugs within the neighbourhood policing approach, to gather community intelligence and to increase community confidence
• targeting the drug-misusing offenders causing the highest level of crime, improving prison treatment programmes and increasing the use of community sentences with a drug rehabilitation requirement
• strengthening and extending international agreements to intercept drugs being trafficked to the UK
• extending powers to seize the cash and assets of drug dealers, to demonstrate to communities that dealing doesn’t pay
• focusing on the families where parents misuse drugs, intervening early to prevent harm to children, prioritising parents’ access to treatment where children are at risk, providing intensive parenting guidance and supporting family members, such as grandparents, who take on caring responsibilities
• developing a package of support to help people in drug treatment to complete treatment to to re-establish their lives, including ensuring local arrangements are in place to refer people from Jobcentres to sources of housing advice and advocacy and appropriate treatment
• using opportunities presented by the benefits system to support people in re-integrating into society and gaining employment, with a commitment to examine further how claimants can be incentivised to engage with treatment and other services
• piloting new approaches which allow a more flexible and effective use of resources, including individual budgets to meet treatment and wider support needs

Getting it right for people with cancer: what the voluntary sector wants from the cancer reform strategy from the Cancer Campaigning Group outlines the vision of the coalition, working together to improve and save lives. It sets out ambitious yet realistic proposals for how to significantly reduce mortality rates and current inequities in cancer care, and create a service designed around the person throughout their cancer journey.

Proposals include speeding up drug approval, more money for radiotherapy services and a possible clampdown on sunbeds and cigarette vending machines. Breast and bowel cancer screening programmes will also be extended as well as a greater focus on prevention.

‘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.

Realising Britain’s Potential: Future Strategic Challenges for Britain (Executive Summary) from the Cabinet Office identifies four major challenges to be faced by Britian:

• The importance of early years learning and childcare in helping those from poorer homes and in improving later performance.

• Continued investment in physical infrastructure (roads and rail).

• Demands on public services and housing, especially in the South East, from a rising population, including continuing net migration into Britain.

• Increasing life expectancy, with a rise of a half within a decade of those aged over 85, and a two-fifths increase by 2022 in the demand for informal care from family, friends and community members.

The report suggests a mix of the public and private sector providers will be required to meet demand. Taxpayers cannot finance all of the expanded early learning and childcare, increased transport facilities and care for the elderly To reduce the tax burden, individuals will have to accept that individuals will have to save much more and pay more in user charges (via road pricing and elderly care).

Tackling Alcohol in Liverpool: Liverpool Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy 2007 - 2010 will see an extra £10 million allocated to alcohol related issues in the city by Liverpool PCT.  Key initiatives include:

• Rapid response paramedic scheme combining police and ambulance staff
• Development and commissioning of an interactive CD-ROM and teaching pack the encourage learning and discussion about the health and social issues relating to alcohol for 6 - 11 year olds.
• Commissioning Health@Work to tackle alcohol related harm in the workplace and people of working age.

A New Health Service for Liverpool Strategic Plan 2008 – 11: A Discussion Document(Summary) is the developing strategic business plan that sets out Liverpool PCT’s top priorities for the next three years and the thinking behind them. It has 8 priorities:

1. Delivering the things that make a big difference

• Cut deaths from cardiovascular disease by half in under-75-year-olds, compared with 2004
• Cut deaths from accidents by 20% in under-75-year-olds, compared with 2004
• Cut deaths from cancer by 20% in under-75-year-olds, compared with 2004
• Improve the health and well being of children and young people through the initiative - ‘Young Healthy Liverpool’
• Everyone living in Liverpool will know more about how to look after their own health and that of their family
• Everyone living in Liverpool with a health problem will know the right place to go to receive help
• A NHS dentist will be available for anyone within a maximum 15-minute, public transport ride of their home
• Reduce admissions to hospital due to alcohol misuse and work with Liverpool people to encourage a more sensible approach to alcohol consumption

2. A better understanding of self-care and how health services can support it

3. Gold standard primary care and community services

4. Gold standard hospitals

5. End of life services

6. Personalised care

7. An end to waiting

8. Joined-up services

To underpin these and enable NHS Liverpool to improve continuously the strategy recognises and values:

1. Developing a NHS Liverpool workforce

2. Research and Development

3. Managing the Resources

4. Making decisions

5. Making it all happen

Turning Point and Dr Foster Intelligence have produced ‘A Personal Approach to Public Services’, a new report which states world class public services can be provided without structural reform or significant additional resources or costs, the holy grail of the public sector! Key to achieving this are:

• Intelligent customer insight - improving effective and consistent use of data to know understand and profile the diversity of the communities served
• Service design - must involve stakeholder participation including local people, particularly those in most need, to design services around need
• Personalisation - create individual budgets and provide multiple needs through one integrated service
• Prevention - make prevention a mainstream activity at the heart of the commissioning process
• Partnerships - make partnership work for users rather than creating talking shops and further bureaucracy.

The National Stroke Strategy is intended to provide a quality framework to secure improvements to stroke services, to provide guidance and support to commissioners and strategic health authorities and social care, and inform the expectations of patients and their families by providing a guide  to high quality health/social care services.

It is estimated this strategy could save nearly 7,000 lives a year and prevent many more people from becoming permanently disabled, the government will claim. It is a bigger killer of women than breast cancer. Yet it has been the poor relation of some other high-profile diseases, such as cancer and heart disease, when it comes to prevention and treatment.

Associated Documents

Consultation response

• A new ambition for stroke: A consultation on a national strategy - Consultation response and analysis

Impact assessments

• Impact Assessment: A new ambition for stroke
• Equality Impact Assessment: A new ambition for stroke - a national strategy

Mass media comment from 5th December can be found on Fade the Blog.

The Cancer Reform Strategy builds on the progress made since the publication of the NHS Cancer plan in 2000 and sets a clear direction for cancer services for the next five years. It shows how by 2012 our cancer services can and should become among the best in the world.

Associated documents

• What the Cancer Reform Strategy means for patients

• Powerpoint presentation

• Glossary

• Cancer Reform Strategy Impact Assessment
  

• Cancer Reform Strategy Equality Impact Assessment

• National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence products for cancer

• 15 ‘CRS Visions - Annex A-O’

Mass media stories relating to this strategy can be found for 3rd December, 4th December here, both from Fade the Blog.

Pandemic influenza: guidance for infection control in hospitals and primary care settings replaces the infection control guidance published in October 2005. The changes and amendments in this edition are detailed on page 4 and include updated advice on aerosol- generating procedures. This advice takes into consideration and addresses the categorisation of such procedures in the recently published interim guidance from the World Health Organization on ‘Infection prevention and control of epidemic- and pandemic-prone acute respiratory diseases in health care’.

Draft guidance has been issued by the Department of Health to support planning for any incidence of pandemic influenza.

Pandemic flu: A national framework for responding to an influenza pandemic describes the Government’s strategic approach for responding to an influenza pandemic published jointly by the Department of Health and the Cabinet Office. It provides background information and guidance to public and private organisations developing response plans. It updates and expands upon health advice and information contained in previous plans issued by UK health departments and is intended to replace those documents.

Planning

Responding to pandemic influenza – The ethical framework for policy is designed to assist planners and strategic policy makers with ethical aspects of decisions they face before, during and after an influenza pandemic. It may also help clinicians and other health and social care professionals with decisions they need to make in the same context.

Pandemic influenza: surge capacity and prioritisation in health services - provisional UK guidance gives guidance on managing the surge capacity needed to respond to an increased volume of patients during an influenza pandemic.

Pandemic influenza: human resources guidance for the NHS is designed to give an overall framework for local organisations to build on/work within and deals in more detail with the workforce and human resource issues that may arise in the pandemic.

Pandemic influenza: Guidance on the management of death certification and cremation certification proposes changes to the procedures for death and cremation certification that could be used in a severe influenza pandemic in order to enable doctors to spend as much time as possible on the care of the living and to ensure that processes for death and cremation certification can be managed as effectively as possible during a pandemic

Service Based Guidance

Primary care guidance will assist primary care trusts (PCTs) in developing their plans for responding to an influenza pandemic. It is also intended to be a useful document for primary care professionals such as those working in general practice, community pharmacy and nursing, and for partner agencies providing services in the community setting. Also relating to the Primary Care setting is An operational and strategic framework: planning for pandemic influenza in adult social care which is supplementary to the revised national framework for responding to an influenza pandemic. It is intended to help local authorities, providers of social care services and PCT’s plan ahead for how they will manage and respond to the situation.

Pandemic influenza: Guidance for ambulance services and their staff in England provides ambulance trusts with a clear and pragmatic guidance to assist with their planning and reparations for an influenza pandemic. Specifically, it advises on national strategy, clinical management (including infection control) and business continuity planning.

Pandemic influenza: Guidance on preparing acute hospitals in England is designed to assist acute hospitals and foundation trusts in England in developing their plans for responding to an influenza pandemic.

Pandemic influenza: guidance on preparing mental health services in England is designed to assist mental health trusts and other specialist mental health service providers in developing their plans for responding to an influenza pandemic. This document details a national approach, setting out the key planning assumptions and principles, roles and responsibilities that should inform the development of local plans.