Reforms designed to deliver safe and comprehensive mental health services have been set out by Health Secretary Frank Dobson. Mr Dobson says he wants a third way for mental health.
New measures will include extra funding, a root and branch review of the law, specialist secure units, hour crisis teams and helplines, more acute hospital beds, and assertive outreach teams to keep tabs on people who have been discharged.
Frank Dobson says: “Care in the community has failed. 

Polio could be wiped out in East Africa by the millennium, thanks to a huge immunisation campaign funded by the Department for International Development (DFID).
Sixteen million children under five in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will be immunised over the next three years under the 18 million pound polio eradication project, effectively preventing all new cases of the disease. 

If public sector organisations are to deliver increasingly efficient and effective services, then cross agency working, a focus on the citizen’s perspective and combating fraud must be key priorities, according to the Audit Commission annual report published today.
Roger Brooke, Chairman of the Audit Commission, said: ” Over the last year the Commission has continued to promote its core values of efficiency, effectiveness and economy. 

Bringing NHS budgets back into balance will eat into the new money for the NHS, said the NHS Confederation today.
The NHS confederation was responding to the NAO report on NHS Accounts published today which highlighted the problem of serious financial difficulties for NHS organisations. Around a quarter of health authorities and nearly 20 per cent of NHS Trusts are in serious financial difficulties. 

The Government has taken steps to ensure that once staff train in the NHS - they stay with the NHS.
The measures may go some way to mitigating the problems expected by managers and unions within the service after the Chancellor’s indication that public sector salaries will not see any major improvements in the next three years.
From April next year a new careers advice service will include information and guidance on all jobs in the NHS, made available in every part of the country. 

The ingredients of what makes a successful multi-ethnic public service have been highlighted in a new report.
The report follows a year long study undertaken by the Open University, who visited 11 primary and 18 secondary schools across the country already noted as being successful in meeting the educational needs and aspirations of their African-Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Pakistani pupils.
Previous research has identified that it is these groups who are not reaching their full potential. 

The number of children being looked after by local authorities is increasing year on year according to according to figures published today.
Nearly ninety thousand children are looked after at any one point in time by local authorities in England.
The figures, for the year ending 31 March 1997, show that the total number of children looked after at any time during the year was 88, 700. The number has increased by five percent over the past five years. 

Health Minister Alan Milburn today announced a major recruitment drive to boost by 50 per cent the number of staff centrally tackling the 100 million pound annual cost of prescription fraud in the NHS.
The Prescription Pricing Authority’s Fraud Investigation Unit, based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is recruiting 20 more staff.
Mr Milburn said this was another significant stage in the Government’s action programme to stamp out fraud in the NHS. 

The Public Services Minister today called for a 30% cut in sickness absence in the public sector following the publication of a new report.
The report, Working Well Together, makes 27 recommendations intended to ensure that current average sickness absence rates are cut by 30% by 2003. 

Public service managers about to invest in new telecoms services for customers could pick up some useful hints on consumer attitudes in newresearch from OFTEL.
The survey of over 1000 business and residential customers and 26 telecoms companies set out to find how many customers knew about or used new services like call waiting, the Internet and voice mail.
The results show that even though many customers are aware of new services, as yet few are taking advantage of them.