Chris May’s speech on the importance of unlocking care pathway data for analysis and service redesign went down well with the delegates and sparked some interesting conversations. The homemade cookies we took along with us seemed to go down really well too.  Thank you to Claire for sharing her recipe with us.

Mayden will be attending a number of other events throughout the rest of the year, so check back here to see the announcements as they happen.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley recently used a legal veto  to block publication of the NHS “risk register”, saying it was in the “public interest”. He stated that if the register was made public is would be “open to misinterpretation and misuse” and that the publication was blocked because governments need a “safe place” to develop policy.

However, the Information Commissioner says that the government’s refusal to publish the full risk assessment is unjustified and departs from policy, and has accused ministers of changing government policy on freedom of information.

The audit aims to evaluate and improve the quality of treatment provided to people with anxiety and depression using four important dimensions of quality: equity of access; appropriateness (evidence based/best practice therapies); acceptability to users and recovery.  

You can find out more about the audit and register your service on their website.   

The deadline for registration is 18th May 2012  

If you have any questions regarding the audit, you can contact the NAPT team at napt@cru.rcpsych.ac.uk

As part of government plans  to tackle postnatal depression, mothers will receive one-to-one care from a named midwife during labour and birth. Health workers will also receive enhanced training to spot early signs of depression in new mothers. Under the plans, women who have a miscarriage or stillbirth and parents who are forced to cope with the death of a baby will also be offered increased support.

Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), said the pledges were “very good news”.

“The impact of a miscarriage or a stillbirth can be devastating for the woman and her family and postnatal depression can be a crippling and sometimes fatal illness. Early detection and treatment is crucial.”

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN), which represents the UK’s 400,000 nurses, has assembled evidence  that reveals NHS community care is unable to keep up with rising demand. 

According to the survey, 89% of NHS community nurses have seen their caseload rise over the last year, while 59% said they were spending less time with their patients than this time last year. Almost 70% said staffing levels had fallen where they worked and 86% of respondents reported that patients were being discharged from hospital more quickly than before.

The document states that “These results raise major concerns about the capacity of community services to deal with an increasing number of acutely ill patients.”

“Despite the stated intentions of politicians across the UK and all the advice from health experts, the RCN found very little clear evidence of this shift actually happening on the ground.”