WIREDGOV

SMEs are being urged to check their readiness for cyber attacks by taking a new resilience test, launched by Business in the Community (BITC).

The ‘Would You Be Ready?’ online test asks business leaders an array of questions to assess their preparedness for various incidents, and gives tips on how to safeguard their assets.

The test focuses on 3 of the biggest issues that could affect businesses:

• cyber attacks – featuring advice from the NCSC’s Small Business Guide
• civil unrest
• flooding

A pilot system is now making it easier for GPs to understand the waiting times at hospitals for their patients.

The e-traffic light system could help reduce hospital waiting times while offering patients a clearer choice of treatment and is set to be rolled out across the country after a successful NHS trial.

A tweak to the GP referral system sees a red light appear against a hospital with longer waiting times while a green light shows those with spare capacity, meaning doctors can offer patients potentially quicker routes to treatment and help them make more informed choices.

Results from two London trials have been promising – red lights reduced referrals to overbooked hospitals by nearly 40%, while green lights increased referrals to hospitals with available capacity by 14% this winter.

PACAC says the Government needs to take action to improve the NHS complaints system, properly investigate cases of historic injustice & modernise the legislation for England's Ombudsman’s services.

A new Public Administration & Constitutional Affairs Committee report says that the Parliamentary & Health Services Ombudsman is the final tier of complaint for people unhappy with their experience of the NHS in England and Government departments.  Last year it received 31,444 new complaints, 88% about the NHS.

PACAC's report on the PHSO's work in 2016-17 agrees with the PHSO's new Chief Executive that the time it has taken to investigate complaints is, "simply unacceptable".  The Committee is also calling on the PHSO to improve how it supports often very distressed complainants, and to get better at showing how its investigations help improve NHS' services for future patients.

The EC is proposing a new law to strengthen whistleblower protection across the EU.

Recent scandals such as Dieselgate, Luxleaks, the Panama Papers or the ongoing Cambridge Analytica revelations show that whistleblowers can play an important role in uncovering unlawful activities that damage the public interest and the welfare of our citizens and society.

A new proposal will guarantee a high level of protection for whistleblowers who report breaches of EU law by setting new, EU-wide standards.  The new law will establish safe channels for reporting both within an organisation and to public authorities. It will also protect whistleblowers against dismissal, demotion & other forms of retaliation and require national authorities to inform citizens and provide training for public authorities on how to deal with whistleblowers.

Once again the media is full of ‘Remainers’ calling for more Brexit Referenda, but at what point do we come to the end of the process’?

So come October 2018 the Remainers ‘force’ the government to hold another referendum on the terms offered by the EU for Brexit and the majority decision is to reject and to ‘renegotiate’ them.  BUT what happens if the EU does not improve them or only offers to do so if we scrap our ‘Red Lines’ (as they have hinted; Michel Barnier on Brexit ), which overturns the result of the 2016 referendum?

Surely we will then (in all fairness) need to have another referendum to ask ‘the people’ if they accept those re-negotiated terms, or want to stick to the previous offer, or go to WTO?

One also has to wonder why the EU would offer us a ‘fair deal’ if they thought a bad one might ‘force us to stay in the EU!

Looking to Scotland, one also wonders if the SNP would accept that the same principle would apply to another Scottish Independence referendum.  What would Scottish voters say, if they found that the Scotland / rUK settlement terms left them with unable to fund their public services, with 90% of the bill for dismantling old oil rigs, etc, no naval ship-building industry and no official ‘use of sterling’?  Perhaps they could then vote in a second / third referendum to stay in the Union!

One wonders how the SNP would finance an independent Scotland without Barnett formula