Guidance Notes and Best Practice Guides
e-ILP: See how Learning and Skills Network (LSN)works and how it improves engagement with learners, in this new short video. The tool provides a collaborative, accessible but personal environment to enable pastoral tutors and the wider course team to communicate effectively with learners. The information captured can be used by staff to enhance guidance, support and delivery of learning.
CRC: In partnership with the Commission for Rural Communities, the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) is publishing a new suite of good practice guidance materials for local councils entitled ‘Continuing Effective Engagement for Town and Parish Councils‘.
Newswire – HPA: Primary Care practitioners can now access a broad range of information to help them look after patients who have come to live in the UK from abroad, following the launch of a free-to-use online resource by the Health Protection Agency (HPA). The Migrant Health Guide recognises the fact that these migrant patients sometimes have health needs which are more complex than those of UK born patients.
NICE: GPs should not offer benzodiazepines or antipsychotics to patients presenting with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), according to updated guidance from NICE. NICE recommends that combination treatments should only be undertaken by practitioners with expertise in the psychological and drug treatment of complex, treatment-refractory anxiety disorders and after full discussion with the person about the likely advantages & disadvantages of the treatments suggested.
Newswire – TUC: The TUC has published a guide for union reps to help them better support & represent disabled people at work. Disability and Work: A trade union guide to the law and good practice contains advice & information across a range of topics, including challenging disability discrimination, the equality duty, recruitment procedures, sickness absence, redundancy, health & safety, mental health and training.
NICE: National mass-media campaigns warning the public of the risks of UV radiation - the leading cause of skin cancer - should continue to be developed & sustained by NHS commissioners and LAs, as rates of melanoma rise faster than any other cancer in the UK. This latest guidance focuses on ways to help prevent skin cancer using public information, sun protection resources and by making changes to the built environment.
FSA: The Food Standards Agency is reminding people about the possible risks from getting the 'winter vomiting bug' norovirus from eating raw oysters. Eating raw oysters can carry a risk of food poisoning because shellfish can contain harmful bacteria and viruses because of the way they feed. Infections linked to norovirus tend to be more common during the winter.
BHF: Eastenders’ Phil Mitchell had a heart attack on the programme last week. Soap operas are out to capture the audience’s attention so it’s not surprising that heart attacks are portrayed so often in a dramatic fashion. However, we know that for many people this isn’t their experience of a heart attack. Symptoms can be very varied and often people can dismiss them as something innocuous like ‘bad indigestion’.
The reality is that heart attacks symptoms can affect people very differently. The British Heart Foundation run campaigns to help people understand what a heart attack might feel like. They have also created a short film to give people the chance to ‘watch their own heart attack’ and find out what it might be like to have one.
Newswire – ICO: Councillors who handle personal data must check if they need to register as a data controller or risk a fine of up to £5,000, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said last week. The ICO is writing to councillors across the country to urge them to check if they are fulfilling their legal requirements under the Data Protection Act. Over 6,000 councillors are currently registered with the ICO, but a further 13,000 are potentially not fulfilling their obligations.
Newswire – AS: The Scottish Government is improving its oversight of major capital projects such as hospitals, schools, prisons & roads in the face of increasing budget pressures & uncertainties. An Audit Scotland report (Management of the Scottish Government’s capital investment programme) looks at how well ScotGov is running its programme of capital projects. It also follows up a 2008 AS report on major capital projects.
