Quality and safety news - 25 October 2012

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News highlights are:

BBC: Food labelling: Consistent system ‘to start next year’. The system is due to be introduced in the UK next year on a voluntary basis. “A combination of guideline daily amounts, colour coding and "high, medium or low" wording will be used to show how much fat, salt and sugar and how many calories are in each product.”

Care Inspectorate: Improving services for children – consultation. The Care Inspectorate in Scotland has launched 'How well are we improving the lives of children and young people?  A guide to evaluating services using quality indicators'. This framework of quality indicators is designed to support Community Planning Partnerships in their self-evaluation of performance across the full range of services for children, young people and families. The closing date for responses is 31 January 2013.

Centre for Mental Health: Recovery, public mental health and wellbeing. The paper, the third in a series of briefings produced by the Implementing Recovery through Organisational Change (ImROC) project, describes the ways in which Health and Wellbeing Boards can influence commissioning to promote and protect mental wellbeing and support recovery. The paper outlines how public mental health and the growing 'wellbeing' movement can contribute to one of the key challenges for recovery: increasing opportunities for building a life beyond illness.

DH: Chief Nursing Officer Bulletin, October 2012. This edition includes the benefits of dual qualification; lifting the lid on Skills Lab; paralympics unparalleled; NHS Pathways – no need for nurses?; Temperature check: NHS safety thermometer update; summary care records explained; independent prescribing update.

DH: Secretary of State for Health hails record breaking waiting list stats. Latest figures released show that the number of people waiting longer than 26 and 52 weeks to start treatment is at its lowest level since records began. At the end of August 2012, over 100,000 fewer patients were waiting longer than 18 weeks to start treatment than the same time last year. Figures also show that the number of patients waiting longer than a year is at its lowest ever level, over 16,000 less than in May 2010.

DH: Single system for nutrition labelling announced. The Department has announced proposals for front-of-pack nutrition labelling that clearly displays: how much fat, saturated fat, salt and sugar and how many calories food products contain.

DH: New principles set out for hospital food. New standards setting out what patients should expect from NHS hospital food have been announced by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
A set of basic principles covering the quality of food, nutritional content and choice for patients will be backed up by new assessments led by patients.
DH: NHS spends more on hospital food but significant variation remains.

DH: Government offers £20 million grant to the Nursing and Midwifery Council. Health Minister Dr Dan Poulter has announced that the Government has offered the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) a one off grant of £20 million to improve the NMC’s performance. The Government expects that this support will allow the NMC to protect nurses and midwives from the full impact of a proposed registration fee rise of almost 60 per cent. The NMC is an independent body responsible for the regulation of nurses and midwives, including dealing with complaints and fitness to practise hearings. It has an important role in protecting patients.
NMC: NMC response to Government offer of a grant.
RCN: RCN welcomes Government's grant offer to NMC.

Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS): Developing eyecare partnerships: improving the commissioning and provision of eyecare services in Northern Ireland. This document sets out the strategic direction for eyecare services in Northern Ireland for the next five years. A key aim is to identify potential sight-threatening problems at a much earlier age.

NHS Confederation: Launch of Hospitals Forum. The NHS Confederation is launching a Hospitals Forum to provide "a thoughtful, strong, and authoritative voice on the issues facing hospitals and acute services in the immediate and long term". The Forum which will be chaired by Dr Mark Newbold, chief executive of Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, will work on behalf of all types of hospital, integrated hospital and community service providers to help shape the policy and politics that affect them.

NHS Employers: Launch of ‘Speaking up’ Charter. The 'Speaking Up' charter outlines a commitment by the NHS Employers organisation, regulators, professional regulatory bodies, health unions and professional associations to work together to support staff when raising a safety concern or issue at work.
News: The 'Speaking Up' Charter launch signifies partnership working.
Care Quality Commission (CQC): Care regulators, professional bodies and unions join forces to launch Speaking Up charter.

RCN: RCN: More action needed for draft bill success. The Royal College of Nursing has warned the success of the draft Care and Support Bill depends on critical factors not yet addressed, such as funding. The draft bill introduces the proposal for a single law for adult care and support in England. In its response the RCN welcomes the focus on creating a preventive social care system, the duty on local authorities to promote the wellbeing of individuals, and the recognition of the importance of better information and support for patients and service users.

Scottish Government:  A Strategy and action plan for embedding knowledge in practice in Scotland's Social Services. This describes how a collaboration between Scottish Government, the NHS Education for Scotland, the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services, the Improvement Service for Local Government, the Scottish Social Services Council and the Association of Directors of Social Work will improve outcomes through putting new knowledge into practice.

Scottish Government: £11 million for parenting programme. The Family Nurse Partnership, which supports first-time parents aged 19 and under, will be up and running around the country by 2015 thanks to a £11 million investment over the next two years. The programme is already operating in Lothian, Tayside, Fife and Glasgow, and is expanding to Ayrshire & Arran, Lanarkshire and Highland in 2013.

Welsh Government: Together for Mental Health - A Strategy for Mental Health and Wellbeing in Wales. This is an all age, cross-Governmental strategy for improving the lives of people using mental health services, their carers and their families. At the heart of the strategy is the Mental Health (Wales) Measure 2010, which places legal duties on Health Boards and Local Authorities to improve support for people with mental ill-health.
News: Together for Mental Health - first strategy of its kind for Wales.