WIREDGOV

Guidance Notes and Best Practice Guides

NICE: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) intend to collaborate on a pilot project to produce guidance on cost-effective interventions to prevent or mitigate patient harm in the NHS.  This follows recommendations made in Safety First, the CMO’s 2006 Report which reaffirmed the place of patient safety at the heart of the healthcare agenda.

The pilot project, which will be carried out between April and November 2007, will assess evidence on clinical & cost-effectiveness and produce recommendations for the NHS of the following safety interventions:

• systems based and IT based interventions in medicines reconciliation
• the prevention of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP)

Safety guidance is expected to be issued to the NHS in November 2007.

Press release ~ Patient safety solutions pilot ~ National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) ~ Safety first: a report for patients, clinicians and healthcare managers, DH, December 2006 ~ Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) ~ A charter for the safety of patients ~ Healthcare Commission ~ DH – Patient Safety ~ Medicines reconciliation ~ Ventilator-associated pneumonia

DfES: The government has launched new guidelines intended to ensure effective & early action is taken to improve ‘weak & failing’ schools. The guidelines are meant to ‘make it clear’ to both local authorities & schools that ‘the Government will not tolerate schools being allowed to slide into failure or drift into mediocrity’.

The full statutory guidance on Schools Causing Concern has been published on the DfES website and the government claims that it ‘provides full details on the use of new local authority powers which will help them turn schools around more quickly’.

Press release ~ 2007 Statutory Guidance on Schools Causing Concern ~ School discipline and exclusions: Directgov ~ Behaviour and discipline - ParentsCentre ~ Improving School Discipline in Scotland ~ Parenting contracts ~ DfES – Behaviour and Attendance ~ Social & emotional aspects of learning (SEAL) curriculum ~ Teachernet - Behaviour ~ Education and Inspections Act 2006 ~ NAO report - Improving poorly performing schools in England~ The Academies Programme ~ Fresh Start Schools ~ Ofsted: Framework 2005: Framework for the inspection of schools in England from September 2005 ~ Teachernet – Surviving Ofsted ~ Home - School Agreements