FT association calls for CQC to assess governors

The Foundation Trust Governors Association has called for the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to assess the quality of governors.

The Association's proposal, if implemented, would mean that a trust could potentially lose its registration with the regulator if it did not have sufficient evidence to prove that its governors met all of the required quality standards.

The request comes after the Health Bill confirmed plans in the white paper to strip Monitor of its role in assessing governance in the foundation trust sector. In removing these powers from Monitor, governors rather than the regulator will ultimately become responsible for safeguarding the public's interest in a particular healthcare trust.

Chair Sharon Carr-Brown said: “There is no standard level of training for governors and their effectiveness is a quality issue. There should be a quality standard, however that is actually framed.

“There needs to be a decent induction process and ongoing training. By April 2012 we would want to have a very clear idea of where it is going. It is important to make sure governors are fulfilling their role in the transition time.”

Ms Carr-Brown also called for a governor presence on health and wellbeing boards.

Do you have to provide evidence to the CQC to secure registration? Words Worth Reading Ltd are experienced in CQC assessments and documentation completion. If you're in need of a little support, give us a call.

New IG guidance released on the use of fax printers

A new Information Governance bulletin has been issued by Connecting For Health which looks at fax printers and other devices that use consumable ribbon or film.

The full guidance note can be accessed from this web link.

This guidance is aimed at NHS organisations, providing general awareness of the associated risks for maintenance and disposal of fax printers and other devices that use consumable ribbon or film. It should be read in conjunction with the NHS IG Risk Management Guidance for Maintenance and Secure Disposal of Digital Printers, Copiers and Multi Function Devices.

Need help with ensuring that your organisation is IG compliant? Let Words Worth Reading Ltd help.

Students to face £14,000 annual tuition fees

Students could face staged fee increases of up to £1,000 a year as universities move towards charging the full cost of degree courses.

At the same time, 'free' student loans with a zero per cent real terms interest rate would be scrapped.

The committee which has been put in charge of reviewing student fees within the Government was originally expected to agree to raise the current £3,225 a year fee cap to £5,000 or £7,000. However the latest news to have emerged from this committee is that they could allow universities to charge the full cost of degree courses. This would mean that students on arts and humanities courses at highly ranked Universities could be charged up to £7,000 a year in tuition fees, whereas students studying science subjects could face annual charges of up to £14,000.

Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, said any fee rises 'would lead to students choosing courses on the basis of cost rather than suitability', and students have said the removal of the fee cap is a 'nightmare scenario'.

Are you a student? See how Words Worth Reading Ltd can help you get the most out of your degree course by visiting our website.

Subscription service for magazines, music and newspapers launched by Apple

Apple has launched a new subscription service for magazines, newspapers and music bought through its App Store, expanding the model developed for Rupert Murdoch's iPad newspaper the Daily.

The new charging system, which is used for apps on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, will allow publishers to set the price and length of recurring payment plans. Apple will keep 30% of the revenue from subscriptions in most instances.

Up until now, publishers have been restricted to selling each issue of their magazine or newspaper individually. News Corporation's recently-launched venture the Daily is the first publication to use the new system, charging 99 cents a week for the iPad-only US title.

Apple will process all subscriber payments and take a 30% cut. But publishers can also sell digital subscriptions to their apps through their website. Customers will choose how much personal information – in addition to their name, email address, postcode and billing details – to hand over to the publisher.

Fancy writing some App content? Let us take a look at it first...

BBC to launch new CBeebies spin off magazine

The BBC will launch a new children's magazine this spring, based on the CBeebies TV programme 'Something Special', aimed at children with learning and communication difficulties.

This new and up and coming magazine will be priced at £2.99, will be published on a monthly basis, and will be the ninth magazine addition to the BBC's portfolio of pre-school reading material, all of which are spin-offs from CBeebies programmes, such as 'In The Night Garden' and 'Waybuloo'.

The magazine is designed to help its readers and their families communicate with the aid of recognised signs and symbols created by special needs charity Makaton.

BBC Magazines produced a one-off special edition tied to the brand last year, which it said was "a big hit with parents and led us to produce a regular title".

Each issue will come with a free gift and stickers, and readers will also have the chance to win products signed by the show's character. The magazine will be available at all major retailers and independents around the UK.

Editor Sara Oldham said: "We wanted to understand exactly what our readers need from their magazine. I’m happy to say that Something Special magazine has been shaped as much by its readers as by its expert editorial team."

Fancy a bit of magazine writing yourself? We can help..!

New network of employment websites launched

A massive network of employment Websites - where any company can list job openings for free - launched in the USA in January 2011 despite large protests from newspapers and online recruitment companies, who fear billions of dollars in lost revenue.

The 40,000 sites, with Web addresses that all end in ".jobs," have the potential to upend companies such as Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com. This new initiative is being backed by nearly 600 hundred industry titans such as Google, American Express, IBM, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin.

The Washington Post reports that finding jobs on the sites is simple: A nurse looking for work need only type in www.nurse.jobs. The search process works for hundreds of professions, and in every state, any U.S. city with more than 5,000 people, and 126 countries. Later this year, suburbs and small towns will be thrown in, too, and the network is expected to grow to 100,000 Web sites.

The .jobs domain was approved five years ago, but only for corporate names such as IBM.jobs or LockheedMartin.jobs. Last month, ICANN gave final approval to DirectEmployers Association to add a twist: search-friendly professions and geographic locations. The new flexibility caters more directly to how users search for jobs online, according to experts.

Looking to apply for jobs throughout the world? Take a look at our Job Seeker services.

Borders files for Bankruptcy

Last Wednesday one of the best known retail chains, Borders, filed for bankruptcy after 40 years of trading. News of this development in their trading future has left the struggling book industry wondering what will happen next, and who will be next to fall.

The New York Times has reported that 'the troubles of Borders are rooted in a series of strategic missteps, executive turnover and a failure to understand the digital revolution — problems in many ways of Borders’ own making. But as those in the volatile industry digested the news that most saw coming, they were acutely aware of the bigger picture: that in a fast-evolving bookselling environment there is slim margin for error.'

“The book retailing industry is very challenging right now,” said Michael Souers, an analyst for Standard & Poor’s. “We’ve had significant transformation. Bookstores have gradually been losing their prominence, and the U.S. market is oversaturated in terms of the number of retail stores. So that trend will likely continue as e-books gain more prevalence in the market.”

Borders have said that its stores will remain open during the bankruptcy process and that the rewards program it operates (particularly in the US) will continue to operate. In addition, the company has declared that it will continue to honour any gift cards or vouchers presented at any of its stores.

In its filing in United States Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, Borders listed $1.29 billion in debt and $1.27 billion in assets. As of the filing, Borders owed $272 million to its 30 largest unsecured creditors — including $41.1 million to the Penguin Group USA.

Publishers, mourning the loss of valuable shelf space, said they hoped the bankruptcy filing would be a chance for the bookseller to reinvent itself. But they were also skeptical that the company’s deep-rooted problems could be overcome.

Borders has however told publishers that it was working on a long-term plan for its revival.

“It has become increasingly clear that in light of the environment of curtailed customer spending, our ongoing discussions with publishers and other vendor-related parties, and the company’s lack of liquidity, Borders Group does not have the capital resources it needs to be a viable competitor and which are essential for it to move forward with its business strategy to reposition itself successfully for the long term,” Mike Edwards, the company president, said in a statement.

Certainly one area that needs significant strength is their online business, and no doubt this will be at the forefront of any revivial plans.

Do you order your books online? Check out our bookstore...

Great year forecast for Random House

The Chairman of Random House, Markus Dohle has been reported to have said that the publishing company is having a strong fourth quarter, which should make for a good report for fiscal 2010. In reporting upon these statistics, Dohle emphasised the fact that Random House now have a hugely successful global market, and that their ebook sales are booming. During the autumn, ebook sales accounted for almost a half of the first week sales figures for many of Random House's books. And that's just the beginning: he predicted another huge jump in ebook sales to come.

To top off Random House's fantastic year thusfar, they have been able to claim prestige as the publishing company for the two bestselling nonfiction books of the year: George W. Bush's Decision Points and -- in Germany -- Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab by banker Thilo Sarrazin.

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Student throws away £0.5 million!

Mr Newman, a PHD student, has admitted to throwing away a MacDonald's Monopoly Ticket worth £500,000. When collecting a take-away with his girlfriend from their local MacDonald's store, he received the Monopoly Mayfair Ticket.

Not a player of the game, Nr Newmam simply stuck the sticker onto his steering wheel and then later threw it away. Two weeks later, he visited the fast food chain restaurant again, and this time collected the Park Lane Ticket. Finally his girlfriend twigged! Checking the rules of the game she realised that if only they'd kept that Mayfair Ticket they could have pocketed a tidy £0.5 million.

The disappointed student told The Sun newspaper that when they were given the original ticket for Mayfair in the Sheffield branch of MacDonalds, they were not aware of the rules of the game. Mr Newman told the paper; 'If I'd have been playing the game, I'd have known I'd struck gold.'

How frustrating!!

Are you a student? Take a look at our website for support with essays, dissertations and theses.

Review of NHS Care Record Guarantee

The National Information Governance Board has completed its annual review of the NHS care record guarantee for England (CRG) following stakeholder consultation.

In the new version (see: http://mailshot.kenthouse.com/link.php?M=105075&N=746&L=1252&F=T ), 5 of the CRGs reflect the aims of the white paper Liberating the NHS: an Information Revolution.

Any further changes brought about by the health bill and information strategy will be considered in the next review in autumn 2011.

Here at Words Worth Reading Ltd we love all things Information Governance'y!!

GPs to ensure they are CQC registered by April 2012

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is currently writing to primary medical services introducing to them the new system of registration under the Health and Safety Act 2008.

Whilst acute trusts, dentists and private healthcare providers have already received or submitted their application for registration throughout 2010/11, primary medical services have not yet been asked to submit their applications.

However, from 1 April 2012, all providers whose sole or main purpose is to provide NHS primary medical services are legally required to be registered with CQC and must show they meet essential standards of care. This requires the production of copious amounts of documentation, policies, public facing leaflets, process charts and audit evidence.

Words Worth Reading Ltd has been working with private healthcare providers from all remits and acute hospitals to support their CQC documentation production, registration process and assessment preparation. If you now need to get your registration ready for the CQC, don't struggle alone - give us a call.

Booksellers in US launch new network of independents

Story taken from Publisher Weekly.com

Two long-time independents, Susan Novotny, owner of the Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany, N.Y., and David Didriksen, owner of Willow Books in Acton, Mass., are taking advantage of the shrinking footprint of chain retailers by launching Bookstore Solutions Management, or BS Management as it is affectionately known. The idea is to open a network of independent bookstores in spaces previously occupied by chain bookstores that had become community destinations.

The first new independent to be opened will be Wakefield Books, due to open today. Not only is it opening on the site of the 30-year-old Wakefield, R.I., Waldenbooks that closed at the end of January, but it also has the same booksellers, shelving and fixtures. There will however be some changes in store. There will be a new carpet throughout, a new lick of paint, a newly built counter, and importantly a newly agreed title selection. Each of these changes will transform the store into an independent. It already sports an Eat, Sleep, Read poster covering the Walden and Borders Express names. The 2,500 sq. ft. store will also have a large local section because of the tourists drawn to nearby Narragansett Beach and a larger children’s area.

For Novotny, it’s essential that each store be joined to its community in name and spirit. Didriksen adds that, “Just because we have new toys on the market doesn’t mean books and bookstores are going to go away. Smaller, community-based bookstores that are run in a business-minded fashion will survive.”

Interested in books? So are we!

Lost in translation

At Words Worth Reading Ltd, we are a fan of the Los Angeles Times as a great publication to read in order to keep up to date on cultural and literary stories from across the water.

Their publication section on 'Playwrights on Writing' seems to appear quarterly in their sunday supplement. Their interview with Rajiv Joseph, the author of Bengal Tiger is a great little read.

In his article here, he talks about how his own failure to understand a situation led to him mulling over some of the subtlest aspects of communication.

Finalists of the Sami Rohr Prize announced

Last Thursday, The Jewish Book Council announced the five finalists for its substantial Sami Rohr Prize in fiction where $100,000 is awarded to the winner and $25,000 to the runner-up. The prizes are awarded to emerging writers and due to the vast amount of money presented, can make a significant difference in the course of a young writer's career.

The Sami Pohr Prize does, according to the award's organisers, "honour the contribution of contemporary writers in the exploration and transmission of Jewish values and is intended to encourage and promote outstanding writing of Jewish interest." Each year the prize alternates between being awarded for fiction or non-fiction work.

For this year, looking at fiction titles, the finalists are:

Allison Amend for "Stations West" (Louisiana State University Press)
Nadia Kalman for "The Cosmopolitans" (Livingston Press)
Julie Orringer for "The Invisible Bridge" (Knopf)
Austin Ratner for "The Jump Artist" (Bellevue Literary Press)
Joseph Skibell for "A Curable Romantic" (Algonquin Books)

The winner and runner-up will be selected in March, and will go on to receive their awards at a New York ceremony on May 31.

Fancy writing a book? Let us help you!

Poetry for Valentine's Day

Writebuzz has pulled together a list of poems that work wonderfully for Valentine's Day.

Why not take a look and choose one or two to serenade your loved one with?

Aren't words lovely sometimes!!

Wikileaks claims to sue defector who wrote tell-all book

Body of story taken from the Independent:

Kristinn Hrafnsson, a spokesman for WikiLeaks, has confirmed that the organisation will take legal action against a former member of the website (Daniel Domscheit-Berg) who left after a bitter fallout with founder Julian Assange and went on to set up a rival whistle-blowing platform.

Mr Domscheit-Berg, who is launching his own whistle-blowing websites OpenLeaks, has written a 'warts and all' memoir of his time at WikiLeaks in which he accuses Mr Assange of being an irresponsible and autocratic leader who once threatened to kill him.

The book, “Inside WikiLeaks”, is one of just a number of recent memoirs from people who have worked with Mr Assange that portray the WikiLeaks founder in a poor light.

In some of the most damaging passages, Mr Domscheit-Berg describes his former colleague as an intensely paranoid man who began travelling with bodyguards, ruled over his followers as an “emperor” and had a particular fondness for young women, money and power.

Interested in books? Take a look at our book store...

Care Quality Commission publishes review on Stroke Services

The Care Quality Commission, the body that regulates the quality and standards of healthcare across England, published in January 2011 the results of a major review into Stroke Services undertaken around England.

The Care Quality Commission's report reinforces the message that stroke is the single largest cause of disability in adults, and that access to high quality support and services is imperative for recovery.

The results of their review do however reveals inconsistencies in the level and quality of care given, specifically regarding:

• peoples’ transfer from hospital to home
• access to specialist community-based rehabilitation services, such as speech and language therapy
• support for carers
• information given to people around the time they leave hospital
• how well services take account of the communication needs of people with aphasia

The review concludes that whilst many areas have considerable scope for improvement, other areas are providing good quality services on most aspects of stroke care. To access a full overview of the report, visit their relevant website page.


Need help completing your Care Quality Commission assessment or implementing Quality and Risk Profiles to support Care Quality Commission monitoring? Check out our Healthcare Dashboard for more information.

Karl Marlantes wins Colby Award

Karl Marlantes’s novel, Matterhorn, inspired by his experiences serving in Vietnam, has won this year’s William E. Colby Award. The $5,000 prize recognizes a debut novel or nonfiction book that has made a significant contribution to the public’s understanding of intelligence operations, military history, or international affairs.

The book took Marlantes over 30 years to complete. He wrote the novel in his spare time, unable to get an agent or publisher to even read the manuscript. “Certainly, writing the novel was a way of dealing with the wounds of combat,” he wrote, “but why would I subject myself to the further wounds all writers receive trying to get published? I think it’s because I’ve wanted to reach out to those people on the other side of the chasm who delivered the wound of misunderstanding. I wanted to be understood.”

The Colby Award cofounder and bestselling author W.E.B. Griffin said, “Matterhorn is a powerful first work that defines the tragic cost of the Vietnam War in human terms. Marlantes’s breakneck writing style is both passionate and haunting, thrusting the reader into alternating moments of chaos and courage reflecting the fragility of our Marines on the ground – and their leadership – in combat.”

Fancy writing your own fiction piece? Let us give you a helping hand.

Updated IG guidelines for Pharmacists

Compliance with Information Governance standards and that all important assessment completion has been of paramount importance to acute NHS organisations and Primary Care Trusts for a number of years.

However Pharmacists, Dentists and even Opticians are feeling the pressure this year, as they are required to submit their online assessments and ensure that they have the documentation in place to support this assessment. Not only that, in order to successfully pass the assessment, they need to be able to demonstrate at least a level 2 compliance against each standard.

Tricky stuff! Fortunately there are companies out there that take the pain out of documentation preparation and assessment completion for all health care providers or organisations that deal with health records. Words Worth Reading Ltd is one of these handy companies! For more information on our Information Governance services, check out our relevant webpage.

The IG guidance for pharmacists has recently been updated. Download it now here.

Men continue to dominate the book world!

Statistics compiled by Vida, an American organisation for women in literary arts, has found there to be a gender imbalance in every one of the literary magazines they reviewed, including high profile publications such as the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Review of Books.

Some of the results they uncovered were as follows:

- The London Review of Books reviewed 68 books by women and 195 by men in 2010, with men taking up 74% of the attention, and 78% of the reviews written by men.

- 75% of the books reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement were written by men (1,036 compared to 330) with 72% of its reviewers also being male.

- The New York Review of Books demonstrated an even stronger bias. Among authors reviewed, 83% are men, and the same statistic is true of reviewers (200 men, 39 women).

- The New York Times Book Review fares better, with only 60% of their reviewers male (438 compared to 295 women). Of the authors with books reviewed, 65% were by men (524 compared to 283 by women).

Vida states, "The truth is, these numbers don't lie. But that is just the beginning of this story. What, then, are they really telling us? We know women write. We know women read. It's time to begin asking why the 2010 numbers don't reflect those facts with any equity."

What are your thoughts on the matter?

Interested in the written word? So are we! :-)

Estate not all that happy about Lord of the Rings Rework

A Russian reworking of JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings has been made available as a free download, following a loving translation of the rework from Russian into English by a Tolkien fan. However, Mark Le Fanu, the Society of Authors General Secretary has warned that even non-commercially distributed titles must be licensed by the copyright owner, and in this case that means by the Tolkien estate.

The Guardian reporter Benedicte Page reported that, 'The Last Ring-Bearer, by palaeontologist Kirill Yeskov, retells Tolkien's epic story from the perspective of the region of Mordor, from where Sauron, the Dark Lord, waged war on the free peoples of Middle Earth in the War of the Rings, eventually to be defeated by Gandalf. The 140,000-word novel, published in Russia in 1999, takes as its hook the idea that Tolkien's own text is the romantic legend of the winning party in the War of the Rings, and that a closer examination of it as a historical document reveals an alternate version of the story.

The Last Ring-Bearer is well-known among Russian fantasy fans, but according to translator Yisroel Markov, publishing houses have not been prepared to publish an English translation because of legal concerns. He himself had been "impressed enough by this work to spend a few dozen lunch hours translating it to English", and the novel has now been downloaded from file hosting sites thousands of times, he said.'

In addition, David Brawn who is the estates publisher at HarperCollins stated that: "To my knowledge, none of us have ever been approached to publish this book." Russia has operated outside copyright "for years", Brawn added, though the situation is now changing.

Mark Le Fanu put out a final warning about fiction that is available non-commercially, stating that, "if the book's available in English without a licence from the copyright owner, that's copyright infringement."

Becareful what you download, and importantly, what you write!

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