And while I’m at it, have you looked at Datagov? This website gives you access to government datasets available on the internet. If you look at ‘data’, you can search for whatever you might be looking for or click on one of the items from the data cloud; lots of interesting stuff on older people for example. ‘Applications’ links you to search sites. I found myself often ending up on the Data4NR site, which has loads of stuff on local communities and social information.

The datagov home page: http://data.gov.uk/

The data4nr home page:http://www.data4nr.net/introduction/

You might find the Homecare website useful; it has listings of home care providers, mainly nursing and private care agencies, but also all local authorities, with their websites a click away if you want to look at an unfamiliar LA website.

The website: http://www.homecare.co.uk/index.cfm

Understandably, the media comment on on the Condem re-write of the NHS Operating Statement (the government’s instructions to the NHS about what to do) has focused on the removal of the waiting times requirements – your GP no longer gets a kick if (s)he makes you wait longer than 48 hours for an appointment and your A&E can keep you on a trolley longer than 4 hours (but they’re told the removal of the target does not mean that they should not try harder; I’ll wait to see, but I think these targets have been useful).

However, there is stuff on better cooperation between health and social care, particularly on re-ablement (that is, getting everybody back to work and not claiming government social security payments) and a commissioning document.on end of life care is still expected later this year; so that is where we should look for the improvements they’ll be going for, and the incentives that they’ll be offering to Pcts and others to do their bidding.

The operating statement:http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/@ps/documents/digitalasset/dh_116860.pdf

When you go to hear politicians, the announcements are often bland and sketchy; you go to hear the subsonics about how they’re thinking about what should happen. Here’s a classic from Lord Freud, now the Minister for Welfare Reform; he’s the guy that’s advised both Labour and now the LibComs on cutting budgets. With a name like that, you’ve just got to look at the subconscious.

Obviously he’s got the lordship and the ministerial role to achieve quick results (for results read cuts). He made this speech to organisations interested in getting people off social security benefits. There’s a new bit of jargon for you ‘off-flows’ – the flow of people off benefits and into work that doesn’t cost the government so much.

What he’s saying here is that they’re going to be looking for organisations to help people off benefits: what sort of organisations will they be and how should they work? Listening to this, can the same principles be applied across government to other voluntary sector charities, say in palliative care of social work?

Here’s a bit of what he said:

To keep up the pace of progress we envisage, we will need well-capitalised and well-resourced groups that are prepared to take up the challenge of competition in this area. Given the greater off-flows we expect to see through migration from Incapacity Benefit to ESA (Employment and Support Allowance) under the new Work Capability Assessment, we will need companies with the scale to make an impact. And in view of the difficulties that we are all familiar with in targeting support to some of the hardest to reach, we will also need groups that already have – or can co-opt into consortia – the skills and expertise needed to provide real change to people’s lives. Consortia formation, financing and management will, I am convinced, lie at the heart of the successful operation of the sector. So if you represent a medium or larger organisation, you might want to accelerate your thinking about how you can work with partners with resources in other areas or locations. Many of you, I know, have already elaborated strategies in this area.

In other words, if you are a voluntary sector organisation wanting to get resources to do things on behalf of government, get big. Small local organisations, local contacts, representation may be truly lovely, but they want results, so big means easier to cope with for the government and more likely to bring widespace results. If you’re small and local with existing local connections this is gives feel-good, but get in a consortium with others so that you can get big.

Hospice managements: now apply this to yourselves. How are you going to get big and help with the government’s off-flows?

Want to see more of the speech: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/newsroom/ministers-speeches/2010/02-06-10.shtml

The absence of anything much being done in health and social care by the government at the moment leads me into the byways of healthcare, and I have comne across a research review for the Forestry Commission on the health benefits of forests, which was obviously an attempt to get some money predicated on health inequalities for a largely irrelevant agency. This example of tree-hugging policy development is about how walking in the woods is good for you and it concludes:

In reviewing the evidence from research undertaken to date we suggest that an urban forestry approach to targeting health and inequalities could focus on the:

• Restorative benefits of urban forests particularly those in immediate residential surroundings including street trees
• Social contact encouraged and facilitated by urban forest use.

Two groups that could especially benefit from a focus on urban forestry and health are children and poor communities.

I yield to nobody in my enthusiasm for social contact in the woods, but if we’re going to be cutting some healthcare expernditure, studies like this are my first prioirity. You have to say this was a pointless waste of time.

But if you want to know, here is the website: http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/urban_health_and_forestry_review_2010.pdf/$FILE/urban_health_and_forestry_review_2010.pdf

Not to be St C’s-focused about it, there are two other honours that mention palliative care, MBEs, in the Queen’s birthday honours list:

Dr Constance Ada Mary LLEWELLYN-MORGAN

Chair of Trustees, Ty Bryngwyn Hospice,
Llanelli. For services to Palliative Care in
Carmarthenshire.

Professor Edwin John PUGH

Consultant in Palliative Medicine, North
Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust.
For services to Medicine.

Who gets honours then and is it appropriate? Leaving aside the remnants of empire in the British system, all countries honour people who make a particular contribution Legion d’Honneur in France and congressional medals in the US, presumably following their own cultural criteria. For the UK, here is of course a committee that advises about who should get one, and anyone can put someone up for an honour, but my ercxperience of the voluntary sector suggests that many organisations plan this rather carefully to assure their recognition. Some people reject one or ask not to be put up of course. Senior civil servants also get a good whack, more or less routinely: you can tell who blotted their copybook or did a specially acceptable job by looking at the levelof what they got.

Even so, should it be quite so bound up in political and policy considerations? The head teacher who became a dame would have been less likely before Labour decided a while ago to honour contributions to teaching at the grassroots. Should it be entwined with political decision-making?  And, looking at a field such as palliative care, or social work, one wonders who keeps an overview. Since charitable activity is an important part of a field such as palliative care, people seem to receive honours for chartiable activity which in a way is a bit of a extra to their professional role: does that mean that palliative care gets a higher proportion than other health and social care specialties? If so, it might be because charities think about these things mroe carefully as a strategy in the fund-raising, reputational game.

Of course, one asks the same question abot royal patrons; again this is a routine part of the British charitable system, and other countries have their equivalents. but have we really looked at how far we want royalty entwined with charity?

I was full of excitement last week with the Queen’s birthday honours. Those revealing pictures of Catherine Zeta Jones, said by The Guardian to be ‘leading’ the honours, left me all a-flutter.

Down the list, we find that Barbara Monroe, the CEO of St Christopher’s, also got one (and a zizzier one than CZJ – Barbara’s now a Dame). The photos just do not offer quite the same thrill, though. But never mind; soon, presumably, we’re going to get new pics in the hat for the Palace ceremony. Or will it be a fascinator? We’re all agog to know and I shall reveal it as soon as a photo is extant.

In the meantime, congrats Dame Barbara; that’s recognition for the recent renewal of St C’s under her leadership, for child bereavement services where she has played a big role, and end-of-life care in general. And for social work – we can claim one of our own.

As expected Andrew Lansley (Conservative has become the Secretary of State for Health; he is pictured on the DH wensite being introduced to staff, but…

Click this link: is he looking to the future, or just looking for the NHS: http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_116035.jpg

Here’s the link to the other health ministers: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Aboutus/MinistersandDepartmentLeaders/Ministers/index.htm

• Minister of State – Paul Burstow MP
• Minister of State – Simon Burns MP
• Parliamentary Under Secretary of State – Anne Milton MP
• Parliamentary Under Secretary of State – Earl Howe

Only Lansley has a bio on the official DH site:

Mr Lansley was educated at Brentwood School, Essex and the University of Exeter, where he was President of the Guild for Students. He began his own career as a civil servant, working at the Department of Trade and Industry.

In 1992 Mr Lansley was awarded a CBE for running the Conservative campaign for the 1992 General Election. In 1997 he was elected MP for South Cambridgeshire, and joined the Shadow Cabinet as Health Secretary in 2003.

Mr Lansley lives in South Cambridgeshire with his wife and their two children, he also has three children from his first marriage.

However, these are the Party bios (Burstow is a LibDem); I’ve edited these to take out some of the political wiffle. All have some background in health, although less in social care, and Milton is a nurse.

Paul Burstow

Paul Burstow was born at St Helier Hospital, Carshalton. He comes from a family of tailors and seamstresses. His father was a Saville Row tailor.

Paul Burstow has been MP for Sutton and Cheam since 1997. Prior to his election he headed up the Liberal Democrat’s Local Government Unit and was on Sutton Council – 1986-2002.

Since 1991 when he was appointed to chair the Council’s Disability Forum, Paul has taken an active interest in disability issues. He was responsible for establishing a multi-agency group on disability issues and for pushing through the Council a comprehensive disability policy for the Borough.

He stood as a Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for Sutton and Cheam in 1992 achieving the biggest swing to the Liberal Democrats in Greater London. He fought the seat again in 1997 defeating the incumbent Conservative MP and won again in 2001 and 2005.

On election to Parliament he became a junior frontbench spokesman on local government. In the autumn of 1997 Paddy Ashdown appointed him to lead the Party’s local government team in the Commons. In 1999 Charles Kennedy offered him the older people brief, outside the Shadow Cabinet. After the 2001 General Election Paul joined the Shadow Cabinet with the cross-cutting brief of older people and social services. The brief involved shadowing Government policy and performance on a wide range of matters effecting the vulnerable. From October 2003 to May 2005 Paul headed the Party’s Health Team as Shadow Secretary of State for Health, and between July 2005 and March 2006 he held the position of Shadow Minister for London. In March 2006 Paul was elected by his parliamentary colleagues to take on the role of Liberal Democrat Chief Whip.

In September 2003 Paul Burstow was named by the Guardian newspaper as one of the most influential people in public services and social policy in its ‘Influencers 100′.

According to the Guardian it considered four main criteria: influence over policy, delivery of services and professional practice; transformative power – the ability to change institutions, places or perceptions; financial clout; and political muscle – judged either by proximity to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, or by robust and influential independence from Downing Street.

Mr Burstow was one of just five Members of Parliament listed by the paper, the others where Oliver Letwin, Frank Dobson, Steve Webb, and Frank Field.

The Guardian described Mr Burstow as: “One of the most knowledgeable and effective politicians on older people’s issues, the Lib Dem spokesman at times seems the only parliamentarian taking a real interest in elderly care, and has almost single handedly kept older people’s issues on the political agenda. He constantly wrongfoots ministers and has played a key role in exposing scandals of over-medication and elder abuse.”

Simon Burns

Simon was born in September 1952. He was educated at Christ the King School, Accra, Ghana; Stamford School, Stamford, Lincolnshire; and Worcester College, Oxford, where he obtained a BA Honours Degree in Modern History. He also has an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from Anglia University. He has a daughter, Amelia, and a son, Bobby.

Simon was Member of Parliament for Chelmsford from June 1987 – April 1997, for West Chelmsford from May 1997 to April 2010, and elected Member of Parliament for Chelmsford in May 2010.

From 1975 to 1980 he was Political Adviser to the Rt. Hon. Sally Oppenheim MP. From 1980-83 he was a journalist and company director of What To Buy for Business magazine, and from 1983-87 was on the Policy Executive of the Institute of Directors. He has been active in politics since 1970 when he was a founder member of the Rutland and Stamford Young Conservatives, and founder and Chairman of the Stamford School CPC.

In 1972 he worked for Senator George McGovern in his presidential election bid against Richard Nixon. In December 2007/January 2008 he spent 10 days working on Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign in the New Hampshire Primary. From 1973-75 he was a committee member, Political Action Officer and Secretary of Oxford University Conservative Association, and a member of the Oxford Union.

Simon has been Parliamentary Private Secretary to Timothy Eggar MP, and the Rt. Hon. Gillian Shephard MP, at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food until July 1994. He has also been Assistant Government Whip (1994-1995), Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury (1995-1996), & Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health (1996-7).

In June 1997 he was appointed opposition Front Bench Spokesman for Social Security, a position he held until August 1998 when he was appointed Front Bench Spokesman for Environment, Housing and Planning, until June 1999. He was elected a member of the executive at the 1922 Committee in July 1999 and Treasurer of the 1922 Committee in November 1999. He was a member of the House of Commons Health Select Committee from 1999 – 2005.

In September 2001 Simon was appointed Shadow Health Minister and was reappointed to this position in May 2005. From December 2005 to May 2010, he was the Senior Whip in the Opposition Whip’s Office and since May 2010, he has been Minister of State at the Department of Health.

Aside from his Shadow Ministerial duties, one of Simon’s proudest achievements in Parliament since 1997 was successfully piloting through Parliament his Private Member’s Bill – the Football (Offences and Disorder) Act 1999 – to tighten up the law on football hooligans, and pressuring the Government to strengthen legislation further in 2000 by giving the courts the power to withdraw hooligans’ passports and prevent them from causing trouble abroad.

Anne Milton

Anne was born in 1955, is married to Graham (who is a doctor) and has four children. She was educated at Haywards Heath Grammar School in Sussex, and trained as a nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. Anne worked for the NHS for 25 years. Anne has a wide range of experience in the NHS. She has nursed in hospitals, as a district nurse (and yes, with a bicycle!), worked in research and supporting GPs and nurses working in palliative care. She also pioneered a scheme to look after people who were sent home early from hospital. Her last job in the NHS was to give medical advice to councils and housing associations.

Anne loves gardening, has been a keen runner (although better on stamina than speed!), and is an avid reader, although her family are at the heart of her life. With two children still at school and two a bit older, Anne can rely on them to keep her in tune with all the issues that come up for young people.

Anne has lived in Surrey since 1994 with her family and was thrilled to have been elected as Member of Parliament in May 2005. Having been bought up in Sussex she understands only too well the problems facing the South East in general and Guildford in particular.

Anne became involved in politics in the early 1990’s, though in the past she was a union steward for the Royal College of Nursing and was also involved in the National Childbirth Trust. Before being elected as an MP for Guildford Anne was a borough councillor for five years in Surrey. She was Conservative Group Leader and was also Vice Chairman of the Conservative Medical Society.

In Parliament Anne was appointed to the Health Select Committee in 2005 until she was made Shadow Minister for Tourism, Gambling and Licensing.  She was appointed Shadow Minister for Health in 2007, with responsibility for policy on mental health, maternity services and healthcare associated infections.

Earl (Frederick) Howe

Earl Howe was born in 1951. He was educated at Rugby School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he read Mods and Greats. After leaving University in 1973, he joined Barclays Bank and served in a number of managerial and senior managerial posts both overseas and in London. In 1987 he was appointed London director of Adam & Co. plc, the Scottish-based private bank, where he remained until 1990.

Having inherited his title from his cousin in 1984, Lord Howe left banking to concentrate on his parliamentary activities and on running the family farm and estate in south Buckinghamshire. In 1999 he was appointed Chairman of LAPADA, the country’s largest trade association for the fine art and antiques trade.

Amongst a number of charitable appointments, Earl Howe is President of the National Society for Epilepsy, President of the South Bucks. Association for the Disabled, Patron of the Chiltern Society, a Patron of DEMAND, Honorary Treasurer of the Trident Trust, a member of the Committee of Management of the RNLI, President of the Abbeyfield Beaconsfield Society, a trustee of Milton’s Cottage, a trustee of RAFT (Restoration of Appearance and Function Trust), a trustee of Sir William Borlase’s Grammar School, Marlow and Hereditary Governor of the King William IV Naval Foundation.

He is married with three daughters and a son.

In 1991, Lord Howe became a government whip in the House of Lords with responsibilities, successively, for transport, employment, defence and environment. Following the General Election of 1992 he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary (Lords) at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; and in 1995 Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence, a post he relinquished at the 1997 General Election.

He has been opposition spokesman for Health and Social Services in the House of Lords since 1997. He is an elected hereditary peer under the provisions of the House of Lords Act 1999.

Apart from his frontbench responsibilities, Earl Howe’s special interests include penal affairs and agriculture. He is a member of the all-party groups on penal affairs, abuse investigations, pharmaceuticals, adoption, mental health and epilepsy.

And looking at the new minimal DH website gets me to the total content for management resources:

Promoting business success and improvement through flexibility and partnership, best practice and a culture where staff are encouraged to develop new skills and expand their knowledge.

Frankly I do not want my health service focusing on business success, I want it focusing on effective healthcare. I shall continue to point out the unnecssary businessifcation of the health and social care system.

You’ll be asking what it says about social care; here it is:

The Department of Health works to define policy and guidance for delivering a social care system that provides care equally for all, whilst enabling people to retain their independence, control and dignity.

I’d like to point out that the concept of delivery is fundamentally inconsistent with the concept of care. Think again boys; try renewing your rhetoric.

As a result of the change of government, the whole Department of Health website as been archived, and there is very little on it at the moment. Does that mean that everything that was ever available has vanished into the national archive? Or is some ConLib special adviser going through each page for ConLib political correctness as we speak? Actually boys (they are mainly boys) there was lots of useful stuff there for people who are actually doing the job and most of it was profoundly non-political.