Northampton General Hospital wins award for pastoral care of international nurses and midwives

Northampton General Hospital wins award for pastoral care of international nurses and midwives It has been awarded the NHS Pastoral Care Quality Award for International Nurses to recognise its commitment to providing exceptional support for staff moving to work in the UK from overseas.

Some of the services provided for nurses and midwives include language support, cultural awareness training, and access to support networks and resources. Northampton Chronicle and Echo

North Northamptonshire Council could spend £15,000 promoting safer sleeping after recent examples of deaths caused by co-sleeping

North Northamptonshire Council could spend £15,000 promoting safer sleeping after recent examples of deaths caused by co-sleeping A council could spend up to £15,000 on a campaign to promote safer sleeping with babies after errors led to at least one baby’s death in Northamptonshire.

North Northants Council is advertising for a contractor to run a ‘safer sleeping social marketing campaign’ from June until the end of September. Northamptonshire Telegraph

Pandemic 'does not excuse' failings, admits care home sued over £200k

Pandemic 'does not excuse' failings, admits care home sued over £200k A care home that was sued for more than £200,000 by the Care Quality Commission has apologised for “the failures of [its] systems and processes in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

Care Home Professional reported yesterday that Amicura Limited which operated Temple Court Care Home in Kettering, Northamptonshire had been ordered to pay a total of £200,181.00 at Northamptonshire Magistrates’ Court, after it failed to protect residents from avoidable harm. Care Home Professional

Designing a social care system fit for the 21st century: strengths and weaknesses of the Care Act 2014

Designing a social care system fit for the 21st century: strengths and weaknesses of the Care Act 2014 The first part of the Care Act 2014 drew heavily on the Law Commission’s review of adult social care. The review began in 2007 and its initial terms of reference did not even refer to carers or the notion of wellbeing but both came to feature heavily in the Act, illustrating that the Commission actively listened, particularly to carers’ voices. Placing informal carers on an equal footing with people drawing on care and the right to a carer assessment were significant breakthroughs in the Act. The King's Fund

Nursing and midwifery national job profile review: evidence report

Nursing and midwifery national job profile review: evidence report Following a request by The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), the NHS Staff Council’s Job Evaluation Group undertook a review of the national job profiles for nursing and midwifery. The aim of this review is to ensure that these profiles reflect current nursing and midwifery practice and are fit for purpose in all health and care settings. This report is the output from the evidence gathering stage of the review project. NHS Staff Council — Job Evaluation Group

Patterns of less-than-full-time working by NHS consultants

Patterns of less-than-full-time working by NHS consultants This report uses the Electronic Staff Record (ESR), the monthly payroll of all staff directly employed by NHS hospitals in England, to examine the patterns of LTFT working by consultants in NHS acute trusts. We first consider how the prevalence of LTFT working among consultants has changed over time, how it varies by age and gender, and the extent to which changes to the demographic composition of the consultant workforce explain changes over time to LTFT working rates. We then examine how patterns of LTFT working vary across NHS trusts, regions and clinical specialties. Institute for Fiscal Studies

Menopause standard launched to help organizations support experienced workers

Menopause standard launched to help organizations support experienced workers New guidance designed to help organizations support employees experiencing menopause or menstruation and better enable them to retain experienced and talented people of all ages has been published by the British Standards Institute.

BSI, the UK National Standards Body, today publishes the menstruation, menstrual health and menopause in the workplace standard (BS 30416), following extensive consultation with experts and the public. It sets out practical recommendations for workplace adjustments, as well as strategies to sit alongside existing well-being initiatives, to help organizations meet the needs of employees experiencing menopause or menstruation.

See also:

• BS 30416, Menstruation, menstrual health and menopause in the workplace BSI
• Menopause and periods guidance is a 'magnificent step forward' BBC News
• New menopause and menstruation standards launched for workplaces Evening Standard
• National standard for workplace menopause support published Personnel Today
• New workplace standards for menopause and menstruation support are launched Sky News

Mental health services that fail to improve could be shut, says watchdog

Mental health services that fail to improve could be shut, says watchdog Failing mental health services that do not improve, whether run by private firms or the NHS, could be shut, a Care Quality Commission chief has said.

It follows the watchdog judging as "inadequate" three child wards at the Priory Group's biggest hospital.

The wards at Cheadle Royal, near Manchester, "did not always provide safe care", the CQC found.

Priory Group has disputed the CQC's finding, saying it does not accurately reflect the quality of the service. BBC News

Health alert system aims to cut heatwave deaths

Health alert system aims to cut heatwave deaths A new alert system will warn the public when high temperatures could damage their health this summer in England.

Run by the UK Health Security Agency and the Met Office, it is aimed at reducing illness and deaths among the most vulnerable.

Climate change is likely to make heatwaves more frequent. BBC News

Boris Johnson says he has handed over Covid WhatsApps

Boris Johnson says he has handed over Covid WhatsApps Former prime minister Boris Johnson says he has given the UK government all the WhatsApp messages and notebooks demanded by the Covid-19 inquiry.

Mr Johnson is urging the government to hand the material to the inquiry in full without redactions.

The inquiry, which begins public hearings in two weeks, is investigating how ministers handled the pandemic.

The government has so far refused to hand over material it does not consider relevant. BBC News

See also:

• Why government is wrong on the Covid inquiry row Institute for Government
• No 10 refuses to say if Covid inquiry asked for Rishi Sunak’s WhatsApps The Daily Telegraph
• Battle to withhold Covid messages is about much more than Boris Johnson The Guardian
• Cabinet minister says government has ‘nothing to hide’ from Covid inquiry The Guardian
• Covid inquiry must examine impact of UK’s ‘broken sick pay’ system, says TUC The Guardian
• Boris Johnson hands over his WhatsApps and urges Cabinet Office to give them to Covid inquiry The Independent
• Boris Johnson hands COVID material to Cabinet Office in 'full and in unredacted form' Sky News

Thousands could get new pill to combat migraines on the NHS

Thousands could get new pill to combat migraines on the NHS Thousands of people could soon be able to take a new pill to combat migraine headaches after it was recommended to the NHS in England.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (Nice) draft guidance published on Wednesday recommended the drug Rimegepant as an option for preventing migraines in up to 145,000 adults, if previous treatments have failed. The Independent

See also:

• 145,000 people in England to have further treatment choice for preventing migraine attacks NICE
• NHS backs new wafer to prevent migraines BBC News
• Hope for 150,000 migraine sufferers as new pain-busting pill gets green light The Daily Mail
• New migraine drug on NHS could help thousands of patients in England The Guardian

Laughing gas study reveals shock side effects on users

Laughing gas study reveals shock side effects on users Laughing gas can cause nerve damage in young adults and teenagers, a study has revealed.

The study looked at 119 young people who were hospitalised with neurological issues caused by laughing gas. The most common symptom experienced, affecting 85 per cent, was pins and needles in the arms and legs, caused by spinal cord and peripheral nerve damage. The Independent

See also:

• Nitrous oxide-induced myeloneuropathy: a case series (open access) Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry
• Young people harmed by nitrous oxide use most likely to be Asian men – study The Guardian
• Laughing gas leading to nerve damage in teens and young adults Metro

NHS staff to begin receiving pay rises as new deal takes effect

NHS staff to begin receiving pay rises as new deal takes effect More than one million NHS staff in England will start to receive increased salaries and one-off payments from Thursday as the terms of the latest pay deal begin to take effect, the Government has said

Eligible staff on the Agenda for Change contract – which includes nurses, paramedics, 999 call handlers, midwives, security guards and cleaners – will receive a 5 per cent pay rise, backdated to April. Evening Standard

See also:

• More than 1,000,000 NHS staff will start to get a pay rise from today Metro
• Thousands of NHS contractors face missing out on pay rise - despite working on same terms Sky News

Covid shutdowns had same effect on people's memories as serving jail time, study finds

Covid shutdowns had same effect on people's memories as serving jail time, study finds Lockdowns during the pandemic may have had a similar impact on people’s memories to serving jail time, a study suggests.

Researchers in the UK asked 227 people to name the year in which important news events happened such as Meghan Markle joining the British royal family or the first Covid vaccines being rolled out.

But they found that the volunteers remembered events from 2021 about as poorly as those from four years earlier. The Daily Mail

See also:

• Lost time: Perception of events timeline affected by the COVID pandemic (open access) PLOS One