Cracks in the pathway – Care Quality Commission (CQC)
This review into the care provided to people living with dementia found an unacceptable gap in the quality of care that means people are at risk of experiencing poor care as they move between care homes and hospitals. It also highlighted poor practices in sharing information between health and care professionals and the benefits of supporting the mental and physical health of individuals in order to reduce avoidable admissions to hospital and unnecessary long stays in hospital.

System leadership – Lessons and learning from AQuA’s Integrated Care Discovery Communities 
This paper seeks to identify the skills, knowledge and behaviours required of new system leaders and to learn from AQuA’s Integrated Care Discovery Communities, which are attempting to combine strong organisational leadership with collaborative system-level leadership approaches.

What students really learn: contrasting medical and nursing students’ experiences of the clinical learning environment – Advances in Health Sciences Education
 Abstract:
This paper explores and contrasts undergraduate medical and nursing students’ experiences of the clinical learning environment. Using a sociocultural perspective of learning and an interpretative approach, 15 in-depth interviews with medical and nursing students were analysed with content analysis. Students’ experiences are described using a framework of ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’ clinical placements. Three major themes emerged from the analysis, contrasting the medical and nursing students’ experiences of the clinical learning environment: (1) expectations of the placement; (2) relationship with the supervisor; and (3) focus of learning. The findings offer an increased understanding of how medical and nursing students learn in the clinical setting; they also show that the clinical learning environment contributes to the socialisation process of students not only into their future profession, but also into their role as learners. Differences between the two professions should be taken into consideration when designing interprofessional learning activities. Also, the findings can be used as a tool for clinical supervisors in the reflection on how student learning in the clinical learning environment can be improved.

DH Digital Strategy Update: 2014 To 2015 – Department of Health
Outlines the changes to the updated version of the Department of Health’s digital strategy.

Improving the delivery of adult diabetes care through integration – Diabetes UK
This report explains how diabetes care can be improved to achieve better outcomes for people with diabetes. The challenge for commissioners and healthcare providers locally is to make the system work to support that.

Evidence update: Preventing type 2 diabetes: population and community-level interventions
NICE has published a new evidence update Preventing type 2 diabetes: population and community-level interventions (Evidence update 66). It is a summary of selected new evidence relevant to NICE public health guidance 35 ‘Preventing type 2 diabetes: population and community-level interventions’ (2011). Evidence updates are intended to increase awareness of new evidence they do not replace current NICE guidance and do not provide formal practice recommendations.

Variation in dementia care
The Care Quality Commission has published Cracks in the pathway. This report reviews the care people living with dementia receive as they moved between care homes and acute hospitals. Inspectors from the Commission visited one hundred and twenty nine care homes and twenty hospitals across England, during 2013 and 2014 and found overall more good care than poor care. But the quality of care for people living with dementia varies greatly. It is likely that someone living with dementia will experience poor care at some point while living in a care home or being treated in hospital.

Dementia ‘Ambassadors’
NHS England has announced that seven dementia ambassadors are beginning to spread the word about the importance of diagnosing more patients with dementia in a bid to help improve patients’ and their carers’ quality of life. The seven, who are based around the country, will be helping local GPs in England to use the best possible methods to diagnose more people.  Their focus is to support CCGs to improve the numbers of people able to access a timely diagnosis of dementia and appropriate care. Their work will include providing one to one support to CCGs, sharing learning and best practice, providing tools, resources and guidance.

Bulletins

• Information governance bulletin – Eighteenth edition