WIREDGOV

NCSC advice to organisations to mitigate against DoS attacks.   A suspected DoS attack resulted in Wikipedia experiencing intermittent outages in the early hours of 7th September.

Organisations worried about the threat of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks have been recommended to read guidance published by the National Cyber Security Centre.  Advice for SMEs, large organisations, the public sector & cyber security professionals is readily available on the NCSC’s website.

Wikipedia suffered a suspected DoS attack on Saturday 07 September 2019 that resulted in intermittent site access for some users in the UK, Europe & the Middle East.  When a website suffers a DoS attack, it will appear to users that the site has simply stopped displaying content.   However, for businesses it could mean that the online systems they depend upon have ceased to respond.

The collection of guidance published by the NCSC helps organisations mitigate against DoS attacks and outlines the importance of understanding your service, creating a response plan, scaling and monitoring.  There is also guidance around the very minimal DoS response plan any organisation should have in place.

People bereaved or affected by a suspected suicide should be given information & offered support, tailored to the person’s needs, NICE has said.

On World Suicide Prevention Day 2019, NICE has published its quality standard on suicide prevention – covering 5 key ways to reduce suicide and help people bereaved or affected by suicide.  Those who are bereaved or affected by a suspected suicide are themselves at increased risk of suicide.

It is important to identify people who may need support as soon as possible so that they can be given practical information and access support if, and when, they need to.  Bereavement support can help reduce the risk of those affected by a suicide taking their own life. It is important that service providers such as police, hospitals, ambulance services and GPs identify people to give information to and to ask if they need help.

A booklet developed by Public Health England and the National Suicide Prevention Alliance – Help is at Hand – has been highlighted as a good resource offering emotional & practical support/advice for those left bereaved by a suspected suicide.

Response to Scottish Government decision to fund Orkambi and next steps in England.

Last month the ISMC assessed that Vertex’s ‘justification of the treatment’s [Orkambi & Symkevi] costs in relation to its health benefits was not sufficient’: meaning the company was charging an unreasonably high price for its product.

Vertex has rejected the health service’s offer, which would give access to the treatment for people with cystic fibrosis (CF), at a price assessed as appropriate for the clinical effectiveness of the medicine.  It was the largest offer the NHS has ever made for a treatment of its kind.

Therefore it is regrettable that Vertex continues to choose not to engage with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) but invests energy into political lobbying instead.  This is clearly disappointing and we continue to work with the company on how we can make its treatments available.  Across the globe, we know that many other countries have had similar experiences.

Sadly Vertex remains an extreme outlier in its monopoly pricing, which is why a number of countries – including for example Switzerland, New Zealand, Belgium & Spain – have also been unable to get Vertex to make Orkambi available to their patients.

Over the past year working with a wide variety of responsible pharmaceutical companies, the NHS in England has secured life-saving, life-changing drugs for patients, including new treatments for haemophilia, rare cancers, multiple sclerosis, muscle-wasting in children and, just this week, Batten Disease.

We want to reassure patients in England that in the absence of Vertex accepting a reasonable, fair and generous offer, the NHS continues to look at, and design, viable alternative solutions to bringing treatments to cystic fibrosis sufferers.

Hounslow Council has u-turned on plans to bring in a licensing scheme for landlords following representations by the RLA and Safeagent.

Plans for an additional licensing scheme for landlords were passed by the local authority’s cabinet in July.  In response to this the RLA threatened the council with judicial review on the basis that the consultation it ran to establish the scheme was flawed.

The council’s lawyers have now contacted the RLA to confirm it will not take forward the decision by the cabinet to introduce the additional licencing scheme, and will now reconsider the way forward, including carrying out a new consultation.