Guidance Notes and Best Practice Guides

Defra: Guidance on the biodiversity duty under Section 40 of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act (NERC) has been published by Defra. All public authorities are affected, including over 900 public bodies local authorities, fire, police and health bodies, museums and transport authorities.

In recognition of the key role local authorities play with regard to conserving and enhancing biodiversity, there are two sets of guidance:

Press release ~ Guida nce and related documents ~ Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act ~ Biodiversity strategy ~ UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UKBAP)

DH: New health guidance is advising pregnant women or those trying to conceive to avoid alcohol. The revised Department of Health advice says; Pregnant women or women trying to conceive should avoid drinking alcohol or, if they do choose to drink, to minimise the risk to the baby, they should not drink more than one to two units of alcohol once or twice a week and should not get drunk.
Press release ~ National Organisation on Foetal Alcohol Syndrome UK ~ FAS Aware UK ~ National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit ~ DH – Alcohol Misuse

NICE: Updated guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) are set to have a significant impact in reducing premature deaths by improving the care received by hundreds of thousands of adults in England and Wales who have survived a heart attack (myocardial infarction or MI).


Produced by the National Collaborating Centre for Primary Care (NCC-PC), the guideline on secondary prevention of MI update the 2001 recommendations on the use of drugs after a heart attack and contains several recommendations on the “lifestyle” advice that should be given to patients, such as giving up smoking, being physically active for 20-30 minutes a day and eating a Mediterranean diet.

Press release ~ NICE Guidance fo MI: Secondary Prevention ~ The guidance, together with a costing template and costing report ~ National Collaborating Centre for Primary Care (NCC-PC) ~ DH - Coronary heart disease

NICE: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recently launched guidance on the use of cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) – potentially life-saving heart pacing devices for the treatment of people with heart failure. The guidance also provides additional treatment options for some groups of people covered in NICE’s guidance on implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) published in 2006.

The aim of CRT (also known as biventricular pacing) is to improve the heart’s pumping efficiency by resynchronising the pumping action of the chambers.
Press release ~ Heart failure - cardiac resynchronisation

CC: The Charity Commission has published its revised guidance - Trustees, trade and tax - how charities may lawfully trade - to help charities avoid the potential risks of trading and get the most out of their trading activities, while also complying with their legal and fiscal requirements – See ‘Charity and Voluntary Sector’ below.

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