User influence on the technology developments in the NHS has been stepped up with the appointment of Professor Aidan Halligan as joint Director of the National IT Programme. He will share the role with Richard Granger, who is currently Director General. Professor Halligan will lead on work to engage doctors and other clinicians to ensure NHS IT is user friendly and supports the Government’s top priority of putting the interests of patients first.In a further move to strengthen user influence, John Bacon, the Department of Health’s Director of Delivery has been appointed as chair of the National IT Programme Board. His role will be to ensure that the IT programme plays a full part in the wider NHS reforms and that NHS managers are on side and help to deliver the programme.

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Without co-ordinated action across Government, the next few years could see an increase in social exclusion. The trends that are exposing more people to the risk of exclusion include an increasing premium on skills, an ageing population with more social care needs, greater ethnic diversity and a growing proportion of single person households. The warning comes in a discussion paper from the Social Exclusion Unit, which was set up to help improve action to reduce social exclusion by producing ‘joined-up solutions to joined-up problems’.Social exclusion is the shorthand for what can happen when people or areas suffer from a combination of linked problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime, bad health and family breakdown.

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The Working with Business National Project has been developed to provide local authorities with a framework within which they can develop and improve the online provision of information and transactional services for local businesses. The project will offer a range of products designed to enable local authorities to support their local businesses more efficiently and effectively. It will be accessible to all businesses, but will primarily focus on services provided to small and medium businesses and will aim to satisfy all business needs, both day-to-day and future long-term development strategies. The outputs of the Project will be freely available to all local authorities to adopt from 31 March 2004.Full details of the Project are available at: <http://www.workingwithbusiness.net/>

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