Guidance Notes and Best Practice Guides
DfT: The first revised Highway Code in eight years has been published and it offers the latest road safety rules and advice, as well as promoting greater courtesy & understanding among all road users, particularly those who are most vulnerable.
The revised Code has increased in size by approximately 50%. It includes 29 more rules than previously and many other rules have been increased, rewritten or enhanced to make things much clearer for all road users on how they should act or react in a variety of situations.
A new Safety Code for Novice Drivers, to help motorists better navigate their first few months behind the wheel, has also been added.
NICE: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has issued the newly updated guideline on the early care of adults & children with head injuries. Developed by the National Collaborating Centre for Acute Care, the NICE clinical guideline gives recommendations on the care & treatment options that should be available in the NHS for people with a head injury.
This guideline is a partial update of the original document issued in 2003, revising areas where new evidence has since been published. The guideline also gives some new recommendations, including imaging of children and the need for collaboration between hospitals to achieve optimum care.
Hospital emergency departments see an estimated 750,000 people with head injuries each year. The advice provided by the guideline includes pre-hospital management, assessment in the emergency department, investigation for clinically important brain & cervical spine injury and indications for specialist referral.
Press release ~ NICE Head Injury guidance ~ National Collaborating Centre for Acute Care ~ Head injury Introduction - NHS Direct ~ Headway - the brain injury association
NICE: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the National Collaborating Centre for Women’s and Children’s Health have issued guidance providing clear & consistent advice to doctors and midwives on how to support & care for women in labour.
The guideline supports normal birth (that is a spontaneous vaginal birth where mother & baby are healthy afterwards), as well as setting out what to do if labour does not progress normally.
All recommendations in the guideline are underpinned by the principle that women are provided with information & advice so they are in control of what happens to them during labour and are able to make decisions that are right for them and their baby.
Press release ~ NICE: ‘Intrapartum care: care of healthy women and their babies during childbirth’ ~ National Collaborating Centre for Women’s and Children’s Health ~ Birth Trauma Association ~ NLH - Women's Health - Supporting women in labour ~ How to Support a Laboring Woman FAQ - Childbirth.org
HA: The Highways Agency has published new guidance, in the latest version of the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges, to help highway engineers, planners and environmental specialists to assess the impact of transport schemes on historic landscapes throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
It provides advice on the assessment of historic landscape character and the effects of road schemes using the analysis of topography, archaeological remains, historic buildings and the natural world. The new guidance will help scheme designers to prepare more sensitive designs that integrate better with the environment and reduce the impact of road schemes on sites of historic interest.
Press release ~ 'Assessing the effects of road schemes on historic landscape character' ~ Design Manual for Roads and Bridges ~ English Heritage ~ Highways Agency - Respecting the Environment ~ Landscape Institute ~ Institute of Field Archaeologists ~ Council for British Archaeology ~ The butterfly handbook: General advice note on mitigating the impacts of roads on butterfly populations ~ Woodland Creation for Wildlife ~ HA Biodiversity Action Plan
