Guidance Notes and Best Practice Guides
TfL: New online postcode data released by Transport for London (TfL) at the inaugural 2012 Freight Forum meeting will help firms plan & manage deliveries during Games-time. Companies can use the data to check whether individual postcodes in the Capital will be affected by the Olympic Route Network (ORN), Central London Zone (CLZ) or road events.
WAO: The Wales Audit Office has released guidance to help patients know what they should expect from catering & nutrition services in Welsh hospitals. Launched at the Wales Audit Offices ‘Food for Thought’ seminar, the guidance draws on knowledge from the report Hospital Catering and Patient Nutrition which was published by the Auditor General in March 2011.
That report showed that whilst there was evidence that hospitals were continuing to improve their catering & patient nutrition services, more needed to be done to ensure that patients’ dietary needs were being met during their hospital stay.
It offers advice on what to do if these needs are not met and stresses the importance of talking to hospital staff to resolve these issues quickly. The outputs of the seminar are to be published on the Good Practice Exchange section of the Wales Audit Office website.
It offers advice on what to do if these needs are not met and stresses the importance of talking to hospital staff to resolve these issues quickly. The outputs of the seminar are to be published on the Good Practice Exchange section of the Wales Audit Office website.
Press release & links ~ Eating Well in Hospital - what you should expect ~ Hospital Catering and Patient Nutrition
WAG: Gwenda Thomas, Deputy Minister for Children & Social Services, has welcomed the publication of the All Wales Protocol on Child Trafficking, which forms part of the effective action which the Welsh Government is taking with a wide range of agencies to ensure that Wales will not tolerate human trafficking in any form.
The protocol provides practice guidance to professionals & volunteers from all agencies to help enable them to effectively safeguard children who are abused & neglected by adults who traffic them into and within the UK for purposes of exploitation. This protocol will form part of the national child protection procedures which will ensure that all Local Safeguarding Children Boards are signed up to its principles & practices.
CAB: National charity Citizens Advice launched a campaign at its AGM to encourage people who rely on heating oil to heat their homes, to get the best deal possible. The campaign is in partnership with Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE), and the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
Citizens Advice is urging households who rely on heating oil – usually in rural areas – to join an oil club, and to stock up in late summer or early autumn when prices tend to be lower, and when suppliers are better able to deliver more quickly. A dedicated web portal will be unveiled on CAB’s website where top tips for consumers, top tips for oil club coordinators and the Best Practice Guide, can be found.
BIS: Guidance providing greater clarity for businesses who offer work experience, placements & internships has been published, as announced in the Social Mobility Strategy in April 2011. The updated guidance from Business Link and Directgov includes advice on the payment of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) for work experience staff & interns, and clarifies when someone is entitled to this payment.
The guidance also includes a new worker checklist for employers and examples of case studies, which aims to make sure that those who are entitled to the NMW receive it.
Press release ~ National minimum wage - work experience - internships - and the NMW ~ NMW - work experience & NMW - examples ~ TUC comment
FSA: The Food Standards Agency has published guidance to help food businesses remove from their products certain food colours associated with possible hyperactivity in young children. Research commissioned by the Agency has shown that combinations of certain permitted food colours, and the preservative sodium benzoate, could be linked to increased hyperactivity in some children. The guidance includes technical details to provide businesses with more information about alternative colours that may be appropriate for their products.
CWDC: Training to support 1,200 front line social work supervisors & managers todevelop their skills & confidence has been made available by the Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC). Employers are being encouraged to register for the places designed for aspiring, new in post & experienced front-line managers of social workers, as well as supervisors on the CWDC Newly Qualified Social Worker and Early Professional Development programmes.
Registration for the training closes on 31 October 2011. It is a development of the highly-successful supervision training previously offered to NQSW and EPD supervisors.
FSA/Defra: The Food Standards Agency and Defra have published new guidance to help the food industry decide whether their products require a 'use by' or 'best before' date. Under the new voluntary guidelines, food packaging should only use either ‘use by’ or ‘best before’ date labels to make it easier for shoppers to know when food is at its best and how long it is safe to eat.
Ofsted: A report providing practical examples & detailed case studies of how Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) have helped to improve child protection has been published by Ofsted. The Good practice by Local Safeguarding Children Boards report builds on previous research into the operation of LSCBs by analysing examples of how some boards are helping to improve child protection services and keep children in their area safe.
NICE: Early diagnosis is necessary to improve the treatment, information & care given to people with dementia, according to a new report. The World Alzheimer Report 2011 from Alzheimer's Disease International warns that in higher income countries, such as England, between 50 - 80% of dementia cases are not being recognised in primary care.
One reason identified for the missed diagnoses is the false belief that memory problems are a normal part of ageing. The report calls for earlier identification & diagnosis, in line with NICE's guidelines on dementia. NICE recommends that staff in primary care should consider referring people who show signs of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) for assessment by memory assessment services.
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