WIREDGOV NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE

DH:  Balancing the cost of preventive action against the need for health costs to fall - Thousands of hospital admissions for falls & fractures among older people could be prevented by better, more integrated care.   If significant improvements aren’t made to prevention services, admissions will double and the NHS & Local Authorities will need to spend £6bn a year on hip fractures by 2036.

Almost 90,000 hospital admissions a year are caused by falls & fractures – primarily in older people – and the situation will only get worse if the NHS doesn’t change, according to a new report published today by Age UK and the National Osteoporosis Society.

The report, commissioned by Care Services Minister Paul Burstow, looks at how the NHS can improve care and reduce falls.  This would improve the lives of many older people and save the NHS money that can be ploughed into other essential services.
Press release ~ Breaking Through: Building Better Falls and Fractures Services in England ~ National Osteoporosis Society ~ NICE-recommended risk assessments 'help prevent falls in elderly' ~ National Audit of Falls & Bone Health in Older People Royal College of Physicians ~ Age UK: Preventing Falls in later life ~ DWP: Falls in older people ~ NHS Choices: Falls ~ Older People’s Prevention Package ~ Medication & The Risk of Falls in the Older Person ~ Syncope & Falls in the Elderly (SaFE) ~ SCIE research briefing 1: Preventing falls in care homes ~ Making the case for investing in falls and fractures prevention ~ SCC – Falls & Prevention e-guidance (click 'START' to activate) ~ Tai Chi moves to prevent falls

NPC:  Devising a code is easy, getting staff agreement is not difficult, achieving 100% compliance is the tough bit - Britain’s biggest pensioner organisation, the National Pensioners Convention (NPC) has launched a high profile Dignity Code which sets out minimum standards for the dignified treatment of older people, whether in hospital or the community.  The Code has been widely supported by both those in the care sector and across the political spectrum.

The NPC is also calling on the public to support the initiative by signing an online petition.  Campaigners hope to attract over 100,000 signatures to trigger a debate in the House of Commons on the need to improve the care of Britain’s elderly.
Press release ~ Sign e-petition HERE ~ NPC Dignity Code ~ Dignity in Care Network ~ Good Practice Guide ~ Scie: Dignity in Care ~ More SCIE guidance - Stand up for dignity ~ Partnership on Dignity in Care ~ RCN: Dignity at the heart of everything we do ~  ‘Dignified Care?’: The experiences of older people in hospital in Wales ~ CQC: This is getting as repetitive as the inquiries into deaths of battered children ~ Older People’s Commissioner for Wales: Dignified Care? ~ The Lottery of Dignified Care ~ NHSConfed:  There is no point in medically ‘saving’ them if their basic care is then neglected (4th item) ~ Dignity counts when caring for older people ~ £500m funding gap for social care revealed

CIPDForget the political opportunism, some organisations are trying to help NEETs - The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) is warning that 'recent headlines, which associate voluntary unpaid work experience with slave labour, are in danger of discouraging employers from offering placements & denying young people a route into permanent employment'.

Good quality work experience provides an invaluable way for young people to build key skills and gain a foothold in the labour market.  It is also a way for young people to develop & display the right attitude & work ethic that will help them to secure permanent employment.  

However, employers also have a responsibility to offer high quality work experience schemes that 'provide real opportunities for young people to increase their employability'.  To this end, the CIPD and Jobcentre Plus published guidance in 2011 (Work Experience Placements that Work) to help employers develop effective work experience schemes for 18 to 24 year olds that benefit both the young person & the employer.
Press release ~ Guide:  Work Experience Placements that Work ~ Prince’s Trust: A guide to seasonal jobs ~ National minimum wage - work experience - internships - and the NMW ~ NMW - work experience & NMW - examples ~ TUC comment ~ Directgov: Looking for a summer job, internship or voluntary placement? ~ National Council for Work Experience ~ HSE: Young people & Work Experience ~ Baroness Warsi announces cross-Whitehall internship programme ~ Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers ~ Fast Stream Summer Diversity Internship ~ CBI comment ~ Sutton Trust:   £140bn a year - the cost of low social mobility ~ Social mobility in England still lagging behind rest of the world ~ Education Mobility in England - The link between the education levels of parents and the educational outcomes of teenagers ~ Summary: Recent Changes in Intergenerational Mobility in the UK ~ DWP - Factors influencing social mobility ~ Disturbing finding from LSE study ~ Unpaid internships that cripple social mobility ~ Graduate Talent Pool ~ Demos: Access to all areas

ScotGovWhy would BIS want to locate a UK institution in what the SNP hope will become a city in a foreign country? - Energy Minister Fergus Ewing last week met with members of Edinburgh’s Green Investment Bank Group in a last-minute push to secure the bank for the city.  

Edinburgh submitted its bid to become the base for the UK Green Investment Bank to the Department of Business, Industry and Skills last month, and a decision is expected this month.
Press release & links
(Editor’s Note: This is presumably an example of why the Coalition Government says that ‘any Independence vote needs to be sooner rather than later’).

DCMS:  ‘Crossed fingers’ all round then? - A £180m help scheme will fund solutions to TV signal interference resulting from new mobile services, Communications Minister Ed Vaizey announced last week. 

Some households will get interference to their digital terrestrial TV (DTT, or Freeview) reception when part of the spectrum being auctioned is used for 4G services, starting in 2013.  Affected homes will be provided with solutions to this interference through a help scheme that will be funded and run by the mobile operators that buy the spectrum. 

The vast majority of affected households will simply need to fit their TV with a filter that will be supplied by the help scheme.   Extra support to fit the filters will be available to the over 75s and people who are registered disabled.  Ofcom will shortly consult on exactly how the help scheme should work.
Press release & links

AUKMembers of the Youth Culture need not apply - If you are aged over 100, University College London (UCL) want to hear from you!  By taking part in a study, you could help UCL's researchers unlock the mysteries behind successful ageing.  The ageing of Britain's population is becoming an increasingly important issue.  Some people age happily, and very successfully leading active lives over 100 years; but others do not, and suffer from age-related illnesses and only live into their 60s or 70s.

Taking part in the study is easy.  Centenarians who agree to get involved will need to fill out a quick, simple questionnaire, and give a small saliva or blood sample, which will be used to analyse that person's DNA & mRNA. 

There is no cost to participants at all.  Centenarians can take part by post, by visiting the hospital (with expenses paid), or by receiving a visit from one of the doctors in UCL's team.  
Press release & links

Spotlight on…Lean in the Public Sector - From January 2012 Cabinet Office has mandated Lean sourcing principles across Departments so that all but the most complex procurement projects are completed within 120 days – making it up to 40% faster for suppliers to do business with Government.

Lean is now a subject to which government is committed to and, in the main, wholeheartedly embracing. Last year, we at Wired-GOV produced our own forward thinking special report on the subject, Spotlight on…Lean in the Public Sector and we therefore thought it timely to send out a reminder that it’s still freely available for all our users.
 
Click here to view and download.

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