WIREDGOV NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE

NIAIt is not just peace some people in NI have been waiting years for! - Despite being assessed as fit to leave and keen to move into the community, some learning disability patients in long-stay disability hospitals have been waiting up to 15 years to be resettled

This is one of a stark set of findings in a report launched last week by the Northern Ireland Assembly Public Accounts Committee;
‘Report on the Resettlement of Long-Stay Patients from Learning Disability Hospitals’.

The Committee also found that the majority of those resettled into the community were relocated to nursing homes & residential accommodation.  The Committee considers that moving from one institution to another like this did not provide opportunities for integration within the community and the report calls on the Department to clearly demonstrate how future placements enhance the life of the patient & encourage integration.

In addition, the Committee was concerned that resettlement in the community was not a viable option for some with complex needs. Finally, the report also looks at the issue of costs of future resettlement and concluded that, while some work had been carried out, further research was needed. .
Press release ~ Report on the Resettlement of Long Stay Patients from Learning Disability Hospitals ~ Statement on Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on resettlement of Learning Disability patients ~ NI Audit Office: Resettlement of Long-Stay Patients from Learning Disability Hospitals ~ Inequalities and Unfair Access Issues Emerging from the DHSSPS (2004) “Equality and Inequalities in Health and Social Care: A Statistical Overview” Report

Newswire – IfG:  ‘Nothing endures but change’ (Heraclitus of Ephesus) - Machinery of government changes are often announced at short notice, usually poorly managed & always costly, a new study by the Institute for Government and the LSE shows.  The report - Making and Breaking Whitehall Departments: A guide to machinery of government changes - makes recommendations to improve the long-standing problems faced when making major changes to the role of Whitehall departments.

Interviews with 34 top civil servants, private sector experts & leading academics described how decisions made in haste about the shape of Whitehall can lead to up to 2 years of disruption. The study recognises that some changes to the machinery of government are necessary, particularly under a new government with new priorities, but it says a more professional & planned approach would minimise costs & reduce the time it takes to be full effective.

The report finds that the Senior Civil Service consider political motivations to be the primary drivers of change - leading to poor planning & unprofessional change management practices. The report identifies 4 specific key themes to machinery of government changes:
 
* Announced at short notice
* Lack of funding
* Overloaded staff
* Little central support
Press release ~ Making & Breaking Whitehall Departments: A guide to machinery of government changes (3.3Mb) ~ ‘We trained Hard’ Petronius (AD 166) quote ~ NSG: The relentless unforeseen: the case for strategy in government ~ NSG: Place Based Innovation ~ NAO: Helping Government Learn ~ NSG Virtual Learning Portal ~ Professional Skills for Government (PSG) strategy ~ PMPA reports ~ Whole Systems Go!: Improving leadership across the whole public service system ~ National School of Government – Sunningdale Institute ~ University of Warwick – Institute of Governance and Public Management ~ Engagement and Aspiration: Reconnecting Policy Making with Front-Line Professionals ~ Public Service Workforce Reform ~ IDeA: Project, programme and change management toolkit

WAGNot going to be easy with probable upcoming resource cuts - A major new strategy & delivery plan setting out how the Welsh Assembly Government intends to tackle child poverty in Wales and improve outcomes for children & parents living in low income families has been launched for consultation (closes on 12 August 2010).

The new legislative framework that is now in place, through the Child Poverty Act 2010 and the Children and Families (Wales) Measure 2010 means that, for the first time, there will be a statutory framework to drive child poverty action stretching from the UK Government, the WAG, through to local authorities and other public agencies.  Almost a third of Wales’ children – around 200,000 – live in poverty.

An essential element of the new Child Poverty Strategy is to set out a new direction for developing more effective local delivery arrangements that can better meet the needs of low income families and provide them with the integrated support that they need so that they have a clear route out of poverty.
Press release ~ Child Poverty Strategy for Wales and Delivery Plan consultation ~ WAG: Child poverty ~ WAG: Children and young people ~ Child Poverty, The Way Forward for Wales ~ Child Poverty, Breaking the Cycle of DeprivationChild Poverty Solutions Wales ~ End Child Poverty Network ~ Children’s Commissioner for Wales ~ Child Poverty Act 2010 ~ Children and Families (Wales) Measure 2010

Newswire – CBD:  It is not just world economies that are collapsing - Natural systems that support economies, lives & livelihoods across the planet are at risk of rapid degradation & collapse, unless there is swift, radical & creative action to conserve and sustainably use the variety of life on Earth.  That is a principal conclusion of 'a major new assessment of the current state of biodiversity and the implications of its continued loss for human well-being'.

The third edition of Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3), produced by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) confirms that the world has failed to meet its target to achieve a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.
Press release ~ Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3) ~ Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) ~ UN’s International Year of Biodiversity ~ Nagoya Biodiversity Summit in October 2010 ~ UK Marine Science Strategy (VLF 3Mb) ~ House of Commons Select Committee Report: Investigating the Oceans ~ 50 key facts about seas and oceans ~ NE – Marine Protected areas ~ Protect Planet Ocean ~  International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) ~ Coral Triangle and Climate Change: Ecosystems, People and Societies at Risk (VLF 4.5Mb) ~ Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network ~ UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre ~ Natural Environment Research Councils (NERC) - Ocean Acidification Programme ~ Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership report ~ UK Biodiversity Action Plan Website ~ WAG – Biodiversity Partnership ~ Biodiversity Scotland website ~ WWF: Rising to the biodiversity challenge ~ The Eastern Himalayas – Where Worlds Collide

PCSCutting public sector jobs costs more initially - The Public and Commercial Services union has won a major legal victory against government plans to drastically cut civil service redundancy payments. Following a 2-day judicial review hearing in the High Court in April, Mr Justice Sales ruled last week that the previous government acted unlawfully when it introduced, without PCS’s agreement, a new redundancy scheme reducing the rights staff had accrued over time.
Press release ~ Background Briefing

TS – AUK‘Deliciousness’ is not a word normally associated with NHS hospital food - Pioneering research from the University of Reading is being used to enhance the taste of hospital food to help prevent or treat malnutrition in older people. The project is supported by celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal and funded by Research into Ageing‚ the medical research arm of Age UK.

The research is using a taste central to Japanese food to modify the sensory properties of food to increase its flavour. ‘Deliciousness’ in foods‚ especially savoury food‚ is enhanced by umami – which is known as the fifth taste and is the Japanese word for delicious and savoury. Umami naturally occurs in shiitake mushrooms‚ tomatoes and tuna to name a few‚ and is commonly found in Marmite and Worcestershire sauce for example.

Researchers at the Department of Food Biosciences at Reading and Clinical Health Sciences are working with The Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust and Heston to modify foods so that older patients in particular will find them more flavoursome.
Press release ~ Age UK ~ Research into Ageing ~ Department of Food Biosciences at Reading ~ See team members talking about the project ~ DH – Better Hospital Food programme ~ DH - Sustainable food: a guide for hospitals ~ CMO(2009)08,CNO(2009)05: All Wales food record chart and nutritional care pathway ~ Free to Lead, Free to care ~ Improving Nutritional Care: A joint Action Plan ~ Council of Europe Alliance (UK) ‘10 Key Characteristics of Good Nutritional Care’ ~ Patient Environment Action Teams (PEAT) ~ A taste for improving patient safety and quality of life ~ Food Standards Agency - Guidance on food served to older people in residential care ~ British Nutrition Foundation ~ What's food got to do with it? - the Dewsbury Link Nurse Project ~ Patients' nutritional care in hospital: an ethnographic study of nurses' role and patients' experience: final report ~ Bapen ~ NICE Guidelines - Nutrition Support in Adults

Newswire – ECThe USA had ‘hanging chaffs’, while we had ‘hanging around voters’ - The Electoral Commission is calling for voters, who were affected by problems at polling stations on Election Day, to contact them.  The information will be used to inform a review on the queues that some voters experienced at polling stations, with reports of hundreds of voters unable to cast their ballots before polls closed at 10pm.
Press release ~ Use online response form 

Forthcoming event: Gartner SOA & Application Development and Integration Summit, 14-15 June, London - What are the main SOA & ADI challenges being faced by many organizations? The recent online Gartner SOA & Application Development and Integration Summit Survey showed that the top challenges are:
 

  • Implementing SOA Governance  
  • Proving and measuring the value of SOA
  • Getting a business case for application Integration approved  
  • Getting started with SOA  

The Gartner SOA & Application Development and Integration Summit on 14-15 June in London will help you to address these challenges, providing guidance on how to successfully govern, compose and deploy applications in your organization.

Highlights of sessions that address these challenges are:

  • The Maturing of SOA Governance
  • Communicating the Value of SOA
  • Why SOA? Why Now? The Business and Development Case for SOA
  • Change Management Basics: If You Want SOA, You’ll Need to Change
  • A New Cloud of Reality for SOA, Compositions and the Future of Software
     

    Click here to find out more and to register for this event.

For information on forthcoming public sector events please click HERE to visit the WGPlus Events Calendar
 image.
Please choose from the links below to view individual sections of interest: