The concern about the difference in performance between the best and the worst hospitals has been heightened by a new survey. 112,000 patients who had suffered coronary heart disease and were discharged from hospital in 1998 were asked to complete a 20 page questionnaire. The survey results are based on the 84,300 questionnaires returned by ex patients.The survey found that the better hospitals achieve performance results that are about twice as high as those that perform badly. In the better hospitals, 16% of patients waited for more than 3 months before admission, compared to 53% in others. On arrival at hospital 25% of patients had to wait more than 10 minutes for attention, but this rose to 57% in others. 12% of patients felt they had not been sufficiently involved in decisions about their treatment in the best performing hospitals, but this rose to 27% in those performing badly.

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Teenagers and their parents will benefit from a 3m pound Home Office fund for family support. The programme was launched last year with grants to 26 organisations. A further 16 organisations are being brought into the 2000/01 programme.The grants vary from 14,000 to 50,000 pounds with the exception of 1.3m pounds for 3 years which goes to Parentline Plus to fund the national helpline which is also supported by BT.

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Politicians and most voters believe that if the burden of bureaucracy could be lifted from the public sector there would be major gains in efficiency. Bureaucracy is usually interpreted as form filling and given the all embracing title of ‘red tape’. Because of this firmly held conviction a Public Sector Team was set up in the Cabinet Office in November 1999 and charged with the task of reducing red tape so that public sector workers can spend more time on what they are good at: serving the public and delivering quality services.Following a six week study of police paperwork, which included talking to front line officers and a telephone survey of the 43 police forces in England and Wales, the team has delivered its first report. Their most important finding is that filling out Prisoner Escort Records every time a prisoner enter police custody is not worthwhile, because few prisoners move from one place to another. Getting rid of this record will save the equivalent of 90 police officers per year. They also found scope for simplifying procedures for processing case files and recommended scrapping six forms. Savings for theses measure have not been quantified.

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Gilbert Probst and Kai RomhartKnowledge management is one of the most important and discussed issues in business today. It concerns how you identify a crucial but under-used strategic asses present within all organisation and exploit it to maximum advantage. This book takes an innovative ‘building blocks’ approach to knowledge management. The authors present a straightforward framework of knowledge-related management processes and analyse each component separately, thus providing a practical and structured tool for assessing the entire range of knowledge-related activities in an organisation. The sound methodology and focus they develop helps readers identify and make sense of the complexities surrounding knowledge management, and begin to chart a path forward.

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A new 10m pound Wired Communities initiative will bring the Internet and e-mail into the homes of people who otherwise may become the new information poor. The projects will target homes in pilot estates, tower blocks and rural areas. As well as providing access to such sites as NHS Direct, on-line revision and homework help, and the Job Club, local community workers will be able to find out about government services such as information on benefit entitlement and pensions.Because Government alone cannot bridge the digital gap the projects are being used as a test beds to assess how partnership with the private sector can best deploy the different technologies to secure the greatest impact on communities and individuals.

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The Home Office has responded to criticism by the Performance and Innovation Unit in a report published in January 2000 by launching a recruiting campaign for nine crime reduction directors at an annual starting salary of 40,000 – 60,000 pounds. The report: The Role of Central Government At Regional and Local Level found that regional networks of Government Departments are fragmented, with no part of central government responsible for bringing its contribution together to assist local areas. The Home Office, together with Department of Health, DfEE and MAFF was specifically criticised and urged to secure better linkages with the Government Offices for the Regions.The nine directors will be located in the Government Offices and they will be a source of advice and support to the 376 crime and disorder reduction partnerships which are made up from police, local authorities and other national and local agencies. They will also have a role in administering the three year 250m pounds crime reduction programme launched in April 1999. They will increasingly influence the crime reduction strategy which is managed by the Crime Reduction Unit in the Home Office.

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Ho S K MThe Learning Organization, (UK), Vol 6 No 3 1999

Start page: 116. No of pages: 5

Lists three concepts – management of change and Kaizen, total learning organization and world class performance – and investigates how they can be developed to add more value to organizations. Looks at each concept in turn, identifying how they combine to give organizations the structures on which to develop world class performance. Develops the phrase ‘total learning organization’ to denote organizations in which all members of the organization are involved in learning; the learning is geared at changing the organization for the better; and the organization adopts a structured approach to this learning to achieve success. Illustrates this approach by describing World Cup football matches in 1990, 1994 and 1998 in which teams learned from mistakes made by teams in the past to perfect their technique for handling the penalty shoot-outs.

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The Government’s new ‘tsar’ for mental health has a huge task ahead of him in making Britain a better place for people with mental health problems to live, says the Kings Fund.The independent healthcare charity says that the mental health tsar will have to work across Government, co-ordinating the Government policies on benefits, access to work, criminal justice and housing.

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The MOD is recognising that modern times demand modern employment practices and perks for its personnel.The role of the armed forces is changing – with many more peacekeeping demands and constraints on numbers requiring more periods of active duty across the world.

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Social care staff are among those public sector workers who are the most at risk of being attacked in their work – and a new report sets out measures to begin to combat the risks.After listening to the staff involved, those who use their services, and the managers of such workers, the National Taskforce on Violence to Social Care Staff has set about producing a range of policy and training materials for employers.

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