Winter preparedness
NHS Providers has published Steeling ourselves for winter 2018/19.  This briefing explores some of the key questions about the sector’s preparedness for the coming winter. These include the operational and financial challenges trusts face following this summer’s heatwave, the support available from the national bodies, and the preparations trusts and their partners are making to meet the needs of their local populations.

Frequent attenders – NHS Right Care

NHS England has published support documents for the High Intensity User service resource pack.  The pack is intended to support local health communities who think that these innovations can be adapted and adopted to support an improvement in their local area.

Employee engagement in the NHS
The RAND Corporation has published Employee Engagement in the NHS: a secondary data analysis of the NHS Healthy Workforce and Britain’s Healthiest Workplace surveys.   This study examined the factors associated with engagement among NHS employees as part of a project with the Health Foundation.  It found that a ‘one size fits all’ approach to NHS staff engagement is unlikely to be the answer and that staff engagement differs among the groups that make up the NHS population. Therefore, approaches aimed at improving staff engagement will need to be targeted at specific groups.

Board Assurance Frameworks
The Good Governance Institute has published A survey of practice: Board Assurance Frameworks (BAF).  This report is targeted at risk practitioners, boards and regulators and is intended to provide guidance as to what constitutes a good Board Assurance Framework.

NIHR Signals

• A football programme for overweight men achieves sustained weight loss
• The blood-thinner apixaban is less likely to cause major bleeding than warfarin
• MRI scan does not help to find the cause of pelvic pain in women

Aligning resource plans across the system
The Healthcare Financial Management Association has published How do you align resource plans across the system?  This is the first in a mini-series covering system governance issues.  This briefing explores how to ensure strong strategic system planning and is intended to be of use for health and care system leaders, finance officers, non-executive directors and lay members.

Talking about dying: how to begin honest conversations about what lies ahead – Royal College of Physicians
This report begins to highlight and challenge professional reluctance to engage in conversations with patients about uncertainty, treatment ceilings, resuscitation status and death. It offers some ‘mythbusters’ to get physicians thinking and signposts to tools and educational resources to support physicians and other healthcare professionals.

The NHS bursary scheme new rules: seventh edition – Department of Health and Social Care. 
This guidance contains information for students and higher education institutions about the NHS bursary scheme rules that apply for the academic year 2018 to 2019.

The importance of sleep for NHS staff – NHS Employers
Read how a power nap can help reduce the impact of fatigue, and the positive benefits of this for NHS staff and ultimately their patients.

Statistics

• National Reporting and Learning System Monthly report England – October 2017 to September 2018

Bulletins

• NHS Workforce Bulletin – 15 October 2018