Guidance Notes and Best Practice Guides
HSE: A 5-prong plan for driving down the number of people killed & seriously injured in the waste & recycling industry has been published. The Waste Industry Safety & Health (WISH) Forum has been working on its blueprint for better risk management since a landmark summit in February, and the final plan puts the focus on those areas where industry leaders agree action needs to be concentrated.
WISH’s plan outlines 24 immediate action points under 5 strategic themes – providing strong leadership, involving the workforce, building competence, creating healthier & safer workplaces and providing support for SMEs.
TUC: The TUC have welcomed the recent publication of revised codes of practice & guidance by the Pensions Regulator on maintaining pension contributions for trust-based and work-placed defined contribution (DC) schemes.
CO: The Cabinet Office has published an SME friendliness tool to help government departments engage with SMEs. The overall purpose of this tool is to change how government procures: so that SMEs make up a bigger proportion of the businesses helping government to achieve sustainable outcomes.
Specifically, this tool has been designed to:
* describe what SME friendly procurement looks like
* help measure progress towards the aspirational goals of the government to boost SME provision (especially opening up to new SME providers)
* incentivise & support improvement by allowing departments to benchmark against and learn from each other
ACE: Arts Council England have now published all 8 films from the ‘Heads Up’ series that have been produced as part of the Creative Case for Diversity, an artist-led set of explorations & sharing of best practise that seek to release diversity from a negative or deficit thinking.
NICE: NICE's new quality standard on caesarean section aims to ensure pregnant women can make an informed decision about their planned mode of birth. In 1980, fewer than 10% of women had the procedure. Now, up to a quarter of births are carried out by caesarean section. Reasons for this include concerns among certain women that they will not receive adequate care & support during labour & delivery.
The NICE quality standard on caesarean section contains nine measures that together aim to improve the care of women who may need, request or have had the procedure. These include a measure that pregnant woman should have a documented discussion with members of the maternity team about the risks & benefits of caesarean section compared with vaginal birth.
NICE: Stroke is a major health problem in the UK. Each year an estimated 150,000 people have a stroke - equivalent to 1 person every 5 minutes. The majority of those who have a stroke survive, however over 30% of people who have had a stroke live with a persisting disability, and so require access to effective rehabilitation services.
In its first clinical guideline on stroke rehabilitation, NICE says that ‘people with disability after stroke should receive rehabilitation in a dedicated stroke inpatient unit, and subsequently from a specialist stroke team within the community’.
This stroke rehabilitation team should consist of a range of professionals with expertise in stroke rehabilitation, including consultant physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, speech & language therapists and social workers.
Health & social care professionals should work collaboratively to ensure a social assessment is carried out promptly, where needed, and before the person with stroke is transferred from hospital to the community.
Health & social care professionals should work collaboratively to ensure a social assessment is carried out promptly, where needed, and before the person with stroke is transferred from hospital to the community.
ScotGov: Health, social care & third sector staff will now get new guidance to identify carers and ensure they get the support they need. They can improve their skills through Equal Partners in Care, an online resource developed by NHS Education Scotland and Scottish Social Services Council.
The resource, funded by some of the £160,000 from the Scottish Government to NES, will help staff to ensure that carers are identified, supported to manage their caring role, enabled to have a life outside of caring and recognised as equal partners in care.
NE: A new set of handy waste-busting & environment-boosting ‘cab cards’ was launched at the Cereals 2013 event in Lincolnshire last week.
Produced by Catchment Sensitive Farming, the checklists provide an easy way to help busy farmers plan farm operations to avoid waste, save money and check that they are working in a water-friendly way. 4 ‘cab cards’ have been produced that cover the important topics of fertilisers, pesticides, soils and organic manures.
Produced by Catchment Sensitive Farming, the checklists provide an easy way to help busy farmers plan farm operations to avoid waste, save money and check that they are working in a water-friendly way. 4 ‘cab cards’ have been produced that cover the important topics of fertilisers, pesticides, soils and organic manures.
CBI: The CBI has responded to the Government launch of a new code of conduct for operational Public Finance Initiatives (PFI) and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).
Press release ~ New code of conduct for operational Public Finance Initiatives (PFI) and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs)
Press release ~ New code of conduct for operational Public Finance Initiatives (PFI) and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs)
