Reproduced by permission of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development The Institute, with funding from central and local government, has completed a research programme on implementation of the government’s modernization agenda. The briefing sets out the research findings. It summarizes case studies of organisations that have found ways to improve significantly the delivery and quality of the different services they provide. It found that the key factors are engaging, empowering and energising their people to achieve a step-change improvement in performance.

Councils with high scores in the Comprehensive Performance Assessment invariably demonstrate a clear commitment to information and communications technology. The Society of Information Technology Managers in local government has compared the CPA results with its own surveys and found a clear correlation between the two sets of data. Its findings are published in the report ‘Making a Difference’.SOCTIM found that councils with an above par ICT service are more likely to have an excellent or good CPA result. Councils with an ICT service below par have a 50% chance of a weak or poor assessment and are unlikely to have an excellent or good result. Top performing councils spend between 21 and 32% more on ICT than the poorer performers. They also score highly in the SOCTIM user satisfaction surveys. Councils with top rated websites are twice as likely to have an excellent CPA result.

Read more on LINK BETWEEN ICT AND GOOD COUNCIL PERFORMANCE…

Patients with a wider range of conditions can expect reduced waiting times and shorter journeys as the NHS moves treatment for more conditions away from hospitals and into Primary Care Trusts. Some specialties such as ear, nose and throat are already carried out in local surgeries and annually some 600,000 treatments are now carried out locally.Shifting healthcare away from hospitals will involve nurses taking on work in areas such as heart failure, diabetes, stroke care and falls prevention. General Practitioners will take on work related to child protection, drug misuse, emergency care, epilepsy, headaches, mental health, palliative care and respiratory disease.

Read more on MORE TREATMENTS MOVING FROM HOSPITALS TO LOCAL SURGERIES…