More health service professionals are to get the chance to work in South Africa on time-limited placements under an agreement which will also see staff from South Africa coming to Britain. The agreement between the two governments is designed to increase the level of co-operation between the two countries in the health sector.The Memorandum of Understanding will also lead to the countries sharing information and expertise in areas such as public health, professional regulation, workforce planning, public-private partnerships and hospital twinning initiatives.
Details have been announced of a conference next month to encourage public sector bodies to do more to ensure they buy sustainable food. Key speakers will include Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the UK Sustainable Development Commission and Sir Don Curry, chairman of the Sustainable Food and Farming Strategy Implementation Group.The conference, which will take place in London on November 26th, is part of a government-wide review of the way public authorities and agencies, including schools, hospitals, prisons, government departments and local councils, buy food and catering services. Together they spend more than one and a half billion pounds a year on food.
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This report from the Department of Health sets out the role for local authorities in improving the health of people 50 years old and over. The growth in the number of people in this age group will lead to a skills shortage, unless people can be encouraged to work longer, and to spiraling costs in public services, unless health and wellbeing can be improved. Inequalities in health and wellbeing are widening between the unskilled and professional groups.Local councils have been given powers to use their community leadership role to improve the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of their local populations. The Comprehensive Performance Assessment assesses performance in relation to their strategic role and their commissioning and service provision. Councils also have powers under the Local Government Act to improve the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of their local populations, and a duty to produce a community strategy that sets out how this will happen. The guidance provided to local authorities refers explicitly to health improvement.
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