Pilot schemes offering health checks for people retiring from work will begin next week as part of the National Service Framework for Older People. The framework sets national standards for preventing illness and improving care among older people and provides a blueprint for care services across England over the next decade.The pilots will take different approaches which could include checks and advice on bloodpressure, fuel and heating, fitness level, diet, immunisation and screening programmes. Research shows that many current health activities fail to cater for people who have retired and that health checks or information are seldom offered to employees before retirement. The pilots will test different ways of targeting health checks at people aged 50-65 who are approaching, or just past, retirement and who do not have access to pre-retirement help from their employers.

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Performance measurement in the public sector has grown over the years in a haphazard and unco-ordinated way. The Social Exclusion Unit’s report ‘Better Information’ exposed the chaos of the current systems revealing that though much data exists on social deprivation little can be used to analyse the problem by neighbourhood, because it was not collected in a consistent form, was not collected at all, or was not being shared between organizations. Cabinet Office researchers also found that some performance measures act as barriers to multi-agency working.In response to this patchwork of bespoke systems which are founded on different criteria, the Treasury has launched a Performance Measurement Strategy. The strategy aims to ensure that performance management initiatives are integrated nationally and locally. This includes across organisational boundaries to help joined-up working.It also seeks to standardise the definitions used in measures collected across public services, where this will help research and joined-up working.

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