Weekly news
Released on 12/07/2010
Events Diary
3 September
IHM Scotland
Scotland’s Top Healthcare
Manager 2010
Closing date for nominations. See attached flyer for details.
9 September
IHM Scotland
Dealing with Difficult People
Assertively
9.30am-4pm, Millennium Hotel, Glasgow
Interactive workshop presented by Madeleine O’Brien; techniques and strategies that will allow you to handle difficult conversations and difficult people with skill and confidence. See flyer for details.
22 September
IHM Scotland
Doing the right things, doing things right
9.30am-4pm, Atos Origin Alliance, Livingston
How LEAN techniques and tools are being
utilised across health and social care systems. See attached flyer.
5 & 6 October
IHM Scotland
Annual Conference & Exhibition: Leading in Challenging Times
Airth Castle Hotel
24 hours of learning and networking at
Scotland’s leading healthcare management event. See www.ihmscotland.co.uk or
attached programme.
This week in Parliament
The Scottish Parliament is now in recess until the week beginning 6 September 2010.
Fall in hospital infection rates continues
The latest hospital infection statistics, published by Health Protection Scotland, show that both C. diff and MRSA cases are continuing to be recorded at record low levels. C.diff cases fell by 44 per cent when compared with the same period last year and MRSA rates were down 31 per cent on the same quarter in 2009.
From January to March 2010 there were:
· 117 cases of MRSA - this is the same number of cases when compared to the previous quarter but represents a decrease of 53 cases (31 per cent) on the same period last year
· 641 cases of C.diff in over 65s - down 31 (4.6 per cent) on the previous quarter and down 511 (44 per cent) on the same period last year
· 194 cases of C.diff in 15-64 year olds - a decrease of 17 per cent on the previous quarter
· the rate of C.diff infection (calculated per 1,000 total occupied bed days) in the first quarter of 2010 is lower than the annual rate for 2009 in all NHS board areas
· with one exception, each NHS board recorded a drop in the numbers of MRSA infections during the first quarter of 2010,compared to the same period last year (NHS Western Isles experienced a small increase from 2 to 4 cases).
Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said:
"I have made tackling hospital infections my top priority, both to reduce the misery these infections cause patients and their families and increase public confidence in Scotland's NHS.
"Working with health boards, we have introduced a range of measures designed to reduce infection rates and we are now seeing clear evidence - quarter after quarter - that these initiatives are delivering results.
"But we're not complacent. That's why I recently announced that we're increasing the C.diff target to achieve at least a 50 per cent reduction in rates for over 65s by March 2011. This will be a challenging target for boards to meet but I expect them to redouble their efforts to ensure they succeed."
www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/ewr/ (See latest surveillance reports.)
Conference 2010 Speaker Focus: Phil Hanlon, AFTERnow
As the date of IHM Scotland’s annual conference and exhibition, the leading national healthcare management event, approaches, the Weekly
Update will preview aspects of the event, beginning with the plenary speakers.
Glasgow University’s Professor Phil Hanlon is one of Scotland’s foremost thinkers about public health and wellbeing and a highly popular conference speaker, who provides food for thought at every event he contributes to, in a style that is both
entertaining and enlightening.
Prof Hanlon will talk to annual conference
delegates about AFTERnow, a multi-media
academic project which traces the development of the major public health challenges of the modern day - including obesity, addiction and mental ill-health - and the current responses to them, in
order to map a future course for public health
practice. The project seeks to explore, among its many wide-ranging discussions, if the long-term
economic downsizing predicted by many
commentators, alongside rising energy costs and climate change, provide opportunities for a
healthier society, as well as challenges to public health.
Prof Hanlon will explore the implications for
organisations, management and leadership of these changes to society and the new models of public health that are likely to emerge in response to them. The session promises the chance to think about the role that the healthcare management profession has to play in addressing and shaping responses to the nation’s health, within the context of wider society as well as through healthcare
organisations. www.afternow.co.uk/
Full conference programme information is attached with the Update and available at www.ihmscotland.co.uk, where online booking will open shortly. The conference continues to
represent excellent financial value for an event of this type and as usual, IHM members receive
significant discounts on the conference fees, saving £100 on the cost of the full package, including
accommodation and dinner. Contact hilary.iannotti@btinternet.com for full details.
Nominate an unsung hero or heroine
Nominations for the Institute of Healthcare
Management’s Unsung Heroes & Heroines Awards are now open. Launched in 2007, as a means of providing recognition to the roles played by those who work day in day out to
ensure patients and communities get excellent healthcare services, but whose work generally goes unheralded, the award is entirely non-prescriptive. Volunteers, allied health
professionals, facilities and maintenance staff, administrators, healthcare assistants,
managers ... it doesn’t matter what a person’s job title or description is, this award can be for anyone who has made a difference to patients’ lives but who wouldn’t not normally get their names up in lights. Previous finalists have
included Marion Rutherford, a speech and
language therapist at Edinburgh’s Royal
Hospital for Sick Children, Charles Waugh,
Lothian University Hospitals pay clerk and Pauline Hogg, Dental Team Manager for the NHS Borders Community Dental Services, but there were no finalists from Scotland in 2009. You have the chance to rectify that in 2010 and make sure that Scotland’s healthcare heroes and heroines get the acknowledgement they are due. The nomination form can be found here www.ihm.org.uk/about/awards/unsung. The
closing date for nominations is Friday 30 July.
Don’t forget also, that nominations are being
invited for the Scottish Top Healthcare
Manager Award 2010, to be presented at this year’s IHM Scotland annual conference. Open to nominations for any manager from any area of healthcare who deserves to be more widely
recognised for their excellent management
practice, anyone can submit a nomination by Friday 3 September. Information about how to nominate is attached with the Update, in pdf format.
With healthcare management under the spotlight as the impact of public spending cuts is
revealed, this award is an ideal opportunity to more widely demonstrate the essential value that management and leadership skills bring to health services, particularly in tough times.
