Independent sector ‘could provide 50 per cent of community services by 2020’ – Health Service Journal
Independent sector providers could take a 50 per cent share of the market for NHS community services by the end of the decade, according to market analyst LaingBuisson.

Complaints and raising concerns – The Health Select Committee
The Health Select Committee has published its fourth report Complaints and raising concerns.  The Committee welcomes the progress made since the last report and sets out an overview of the developments and recommendations to date as well as those expected in 2015.  Recommendations include: system and professional regulators must be able to identify the difference between a provider’s positive culture of complaints handling, rather than the number of complaints being an indicator of failure; introduction of a single gateway for raising complaints and concerns with clearer, adequately resourced arrangements for advocacy and support; and rectification of the removal of primary care complaints handling from local areas which has resulted in a disconnection from local knowledge and learning and led to unacceptable delays.

NHS England publishes new guide to healthy ageing – NHS England
NHS England has published a new Practical Guide to Healthy Ageing with Age UK, to help people improve their health and general fitness, particularly those aged 70 or over with ‘mild frailty’. The evidence-based guide covers key areas that have been identified as the main risk factors for older people living at home, but if they are proactively managed, they can help people stay well for longer and improve their quality of life. Topics include medicines reviews, exercise, preventing falls, general home safety, and keeping warm and staying well in winter, with tips to help older people stay both physically and mentally fit and independent, and pointers on when to seek medical support and advice.  It also signposts people to a range of additional help and advice from Age UK.

Partnership working in delivering student nurse mentorship: facilitators and constraints. – National Nursing Research Unit
A complex network of partnerships between HEI and healthcare personnel ensures that nursing students are placed with appropriately qualified mentors in approved clinical learning environments during the practical component of the course.  These partnerships then support mentors in guiding and assessing students and hence are central to assuring that students are fit for practice at the point of registration.  Drawing on NNRU research, this Policy Plus focuses on partnership working in delivering student nurse mentorship and considers the implications of factors that facilitate and constrain its operation.

Patient complaints and staff concerns must be taken seriously – Royal College of Nursing
The RCN has responded to a new Health Select Committee report on complaints and raising concerns.

BMJ Quality & Safety – February 2015, Volume 24, Issue 2 
Full text articles available with your NHS Open Athens Account

• A ‘work smarter, not harder’ approach to improving healthcare quality
• Advancing the science of measurement of diagnostic errors in healthcare: the Safer Dx framework
• A combined teamwork training and work standardisation intervention in operating theatres: controlled interrupted time series study
• Effectiveness of facilitated introduction of a standard operating procedure into routine processes in the operating theatre: a controlled interrupted time series
• Better-than-average and worse-than-average hospitals may not significantly differ from average hospitals: an analysis of Medicare Hospital Compare ratings
• Self-reported patient safety competence among Canadian medical students and postgraduate trainees: a cross-sectional survey
• Adverse events in patients with return emergency department visits
• Use of non-indicated cardiac testing in low-risk patients: Choosing Wisely
• Driven to distraction: a prospective controlled study of a simulated ward round experience to improve patient safety teaching for medical students