In this update:

COAG natural disasters involving young people reproductive rights consumer education data assurance health technologies A&E visits

dementia care end of life care community care standards aged care child protection care & educational outcomes out of home care support

child welfare court young mothers children's services violence in indigenous refugees unaccompanied minors community housing housing providers

	Impacts and Benefits of COAG Reforms: Reporting Framework The Productivity Commission has been given the role of reporting to COAG periodically on the economic 'impacts and benefits' of the reforms. It was asked to prepare initially a framework report which would set out how it proposes to go about this task. Includes Catalogue of COAG Reforms and Initiatives Productivity Comm (Jan 2011) Statistics: Natural disasters in 2010 Unless we act now, we will see more and more disasters due to unplanned urbanization and environmental degradation. And weather-related disasters are sure to rise in the future, due to factors that include climate change...It’s critical for local governments, city leaders and their partners to incorporate climate change adaptation in urban planning UN (Jan 2011) Tomorrow’s People? A guide for overview and scrutiny committees about involving young people in scrutiny constructive and ongoing involvement of young people in scrutiny helps to achieve genuine accountability for the use scrutiny of public resources. UK CFPS (Jan 2011) Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Technology in 2030 developments in IVF, screening, gay parents, cloning US Brookings (Jan 2011) Consumer Education Initiatives in Financial and Health Literacy focuses on financial and/or health literacy initiatives for low-income or underserved consumers. US HHS (Dec 2010) Data Assurance Framework : Improving data quality  Since the start of the Payment by Results (PbR) programme in the NHS, average clinical coding errors at trusts have decreased by 5 per cent from 16 to 11 per cent. The programme has identified about £9m of financial errors because of this incorrect data. UK Audit (Jan 2011) Remote control, the patient-practitioner relationship in a digital age  the over-reliance on treatment delivered through face-to-face contact means the NHS risks being stuck in the technological dark ages...Despite the huge funding pressures, NHS organisations should continue to make the case for new technologies as they will form the backbone for how we access many public services in the future UK NHS (Jan 2011) Large number of A&E visits require no actual treatment A large number of visits to NHS accident and emergency departments in England end with the patient just needing advice and no actual treatment UK NHS (Jan 2011)
	Support. Stay. Save. Care and support of people with dementia in their own homes  a UK survey suggests substandard care will result in 50,000 people being forced into care homes early. For each avoidable month these people spend in care, the state will face a bill of at least £70 million. Tens of thousands more will be admitted to hospital unnecessarily. UK Alzheimers (Jan 2011) Bereavement care services: a synthesis of the literature and Spiritual care at the end of life: a systematic review of the literature UK Health (Jan 2011) Community Care Common Standards Guide developed jointly by the Australian Government and State and Territory Governments as part of broader community care reforms to develop common arrangements that help to simplify and streamline the way community care is delivered. Aus Health (Jan 2011) Caring For Older Australians: Draft report identifies a number of weaknesses in the aged care system. While over one million older people receive aged care services, the system is difficult to navigate, there are gaps in service coverage, user charges are inconsistent and inequitable, and the workforce is under pressure. Productivity Comm (Jan 2011) Child protection Australia 2009-2010 in the last 12 months the number of children subject to a substantiation of a notification across Australia decreased by 4%, to around 31,300 children. This decrease confirms a trend that has been emerging over the last few years. AIHW (Jan 2011) Educational outcomes of children on guardianship or custody orders: a pilot study, Stage 2 A considerable number of children in the care of the state are not meeting the national benchmarks for literacy and numeracy AIHW (Jan 2011) Financial and Non-Financial Support to Formal and Informal Out of Home Carers an inventory of financial and non-financial support for formal and informal carers (based on information provided by the Commonwealth and each of the states and territories); descriptions of the barriers to the caring role; a review of existing qualitative research on carers’ experiences of supports and services; service gaps and inequities; and examples of good practice in OOHC. SPRC (Jan 2011)
	Child Welfare Hearings: A Scoping Study of the Commissioning, Preparation and Use of Bar Reports There are no formal practice notes that govern the commissioning, preparation and submission of reports. In the majority of reports, the views of the child are sought and are set out in the report. Scotland (Jan 2011) Young Motherhood and Child Outcomes There are clearly strong associations between being born to a young mother and having poor outcomes as both a young child and a young adult. .... The poorer outcomes may be due to family background characteristics that influence both fertility patterns and the outcomes of children. SPRC (Jan 2011) Agenda for Children and Young People outlines proposed new policy directions across a wide range of areas affecting children and young people in Tasmania. The paper suggests new ways of working to ensure that services for children and young people are delivered in a more integrated way. Tas Premier (Jan 2011) Non-disclosure of violence in Australian Indigenous communities examines reasons for non-disclosure in the broader Australian community before discussing how factors specific to Indigenous Australians influence individual decisions to disclose violence. AIC (Jan 2011) Refugees and Communication Technology Workshop to identify actions that will support refugees and asylum seekers use communication technologies in displacement settings and during resettlement in Australia NSW  UT (Jan 2011) Unaccompanied Immigrant Children: A Growing Phenomenon with Few Easy Solutions Young migrants are more vulnerable than adult migrants and are less likely to be seen, at least in the long term, as potentially productive members of society by host countries. US MIS (Jan 2010) Community housing 2009-10 At 30 June 2010 there were 959 mainstream community housing organisations that managed nearly 46,000 dwellings funded under the National Affordable Housing Agreement (NAHA) and associated National Partnership Agreements. also Public rental housing 2009-10 and State owned and managed Indigenous housing 2009-10 AIHW (Jan 2011) Stakeholder views of the regulation of affordable housing providers in Australia contributes to discussions in government and among not-for-profit housing providers about the way regulation can assist their efforts to increase the supply of affordable rental housing in Australia. Most organisations (88%) manage less than 50 dwellings each, whilst just over 5% manage 200 or more dwellings AHURI (Jan 2011)

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In this update:

Rudd government consultants provider economics behavioural health public involvement paediatric services early years outcomes healthcare workforce

cancer nurse workforce dental quality dental workforce public health framework pandemic preparedness nutrition labelling foster carers income support customers

foster youth transitioning adolescent offenders intellectually disabled parents fire safety & disability homeless outreach antisocial behaviour building projects moisture in homes

	The Rudd Government: Australian Commonwealth Administration 2007–2010 collection examines Commonwealth administration under the leadership Prime Minister Kevin Rudd from 2007-2010 summary of changes to health and hospitals ANU (Jan 2010) Central government's use of consultants and interims some departments have failed to grow the skills they require, leaving them heavily reliant on consultants. Relying on consultants for commonly required skills is expensive and repeated use suggests poor value for money. UK House of Commons (Dec 2010) Provider economics impact assessment model to help providers, commissioners and other interested parties understand the possible impact of potential commissioning changes on their provider’s costs and quality and to provide a basis for discussion....to analyse the potential impact of commissioning decisions on service continuity and provider sustainability UK Health (Dec 2010) Applying behavioural insight to health draws on insights from behavioural science and behavioural economics and shows ways in which health improvements can be made without resorting to legislation or costly programmes. UK Cabinet Office (Dec 2010) Involving the public in healthcare policy An update of the research evidence and proposed evaluation framework there may be instances in which involving the public in healthcare decision-making may not be desirable because it threatens equitable access to services. US RAND (Dec 2010) Facing The Future: Standards for Paediatric Services sets out 10 service standards that the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health believes are a minimum requirement for all general paediatric services...Standard 10 aims to ensure that any child or young person of 18 years or younger, presenting with child protection concerns, is appropriately assessed at an appropriate time by a competent paediatrician....An initial strategy discussion (with interagency colleagues) must take place in accordance with local safeguarding policies, as soon as practical and usually within 2 hours UK Royal College PCH (Dec 2010) Getting better? Improving outcomes for children and young people lessons for health services on Early years; Disability ; Child poverty ; Safeguarding. A recurrent theme is the importance of multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working because of the complex nature of children’s needs that cross organisational boundaries particularly between health, education and social services UK C4EO (Jan 2011) Liberating the NHS: developing the healthcare workforce  sets out the core functions of workforce planning and development and introduces the proposed roles and responsibilities that different organisations will undertake. UK Health (Dec 2010)
	Clinical Nurse Specialists in Cancer Care; Provision, Proportion and Performance A census of the cancer specialist nurse workforce in England 2010...offers a role descriptor of clinical nurse specialists working in cancer care UK NHS (Dec 2010) Dental Quality and Outcomes Framework will be underpinned by the use of a standardised oral health assessment and the development of a comprehensive set of accredited clinical pathways. UK Health (Dec 2010) An Analysis of the Dental Workforce in Scotland: A Strategic Review 2010 provides a clear picture of the skills mix of dental professionals currently providing dental care to the public in Scotland. Scotland (Dec 2010) Public Health Classifications Project - Determinants of Health A unified framework would improve the quality and consistency of reported information on public health activity, performance, investment and expenditure. NSW Health (Dec 2010) Recommendations for good practice in pandemic preparedness: identified through evaluation of the response to pandemic (H1N1) 2009 WHO Europe (Dec 2010) Nutrition Facts Panels to Appear on Labels of Popular Cuts of Meat and Poultry Products Under new US rules, packages of ground or chopped meat and poultry will feature nutrition facts panels on their labels. USDA (Dec 2010) Financial and Non-Financial Support to Formal and Informal Out of Home Carers Out-of-home carers can be any person caring, wholly or substantially, for a dependent child in their residence who is not their legal responsibility as a parent...There is no national database on formal foster and kinship carers. SPRC (Dec 2010) Income support customers: a statistical overview 2009 Payments for older people, people with disabilities and for those caring for people with disabilities, severe medical conditions or those who are frail aged FaHSCIA (Dec 2010)
	The Transition to Adulthood: How States Can Support Older Youth in Foster Care, examines five critical areas of support: education, employment, housing, health care and relationships. US NGA (Dec 2010) Substance Use and Delinquent Behavior Among Serious Adolescent Offenders key findings on the link between adolescent substance use and serious offending, including that substance use and offending at one age is a consistent predictor of continued serious offending at a later age; substance use and serious offending fluctuate in similar patterns over time; and both decrease in late adolescence. US OJJDP (Dec 2010) Parent training support for intellectually disabled parents research suggests that the number of intellectually disabled people with children is increasing. Are there effective strategies to reduce the risk of neglectful care and resulting health, developmental and behavioural problems? Campbell Collaboration (Dec 2010) Focus on Fire Safety: People with Disabilities  Physical disability was a contributing factor in an estimated average of 13% of  home fire deaths per year. US Fire Administration (Dec 2010) Assertive outreach explore the ‘assertive outreach’ approach, with a specific focus on the potential for this approach to reduce rough sleeping AHURI (Jan 2011) New help for antisocial behaviour victims UK police are trialling new approaches to tracking and managing antisocial behaviour incidents  using a new system to log complaints and improving the use of IT to share information.. UK Home Office (Jan 2011) Creating excellent buildings: A guide for clients advice for people commissioning and managing building projects, including clients from the public, private and voluntary sectors as well as their design and construction teams. also Creating successful masterplans for development projects above the scale of single buildings. UK CABE (Jan 2011) Monitoring of Internal Moisture Loads in Residential Buildings High relative humidity  favors growth of biological contaminants such as dust mites and mold. Elevated moisture levels over a prolonged period of time may also result in physical damage to the home. US HUD (Dec 2010)