The May edition of the Words Worth Reading Ltd newsletter is now available to download

The May edition of the Words Worth Reading Ltd newsletter is now available to download.

This is the month that exams come to an end and some students head off on their summer break. In the Words Worth Reading Ltd office we have been helping students to finalise their dissertations. We have also been busy working with clients, new and existing, to update their policy documentation and submit their requirements to the Information Governance Toolkit.

To get the latest news about business, healthcare, writing, student life, and to find out what the Words Worth Reading Ltd team have been up to, download this month's newsletter from our website by clicking here.

Do we know how to speak our own language?

Researchers have come to the conclusion that most Brits struggle to pronounce common words in the English language.

According to the study, Tongue Tied: A Study of the most difficult words to pronounce, place names were particularly difficult for British people to say correctly.


The study, commissioned by London railway station St Pancras International, which is mispronounced by 33% of the population, also found that the Cambridgeshire city Ely is the most mispronounced word with over half of Brits getting it wrong. Among other words, nearly 50% cannot pronounce sherbet and 34% struggle to say et cetera correctly.

Just so you know...

Ely is pronounced EE-lee
Greenwich is pronounced Gren-itch
Prescription is pronounced Pru-skrip-shun
and Sherbet, shur-but.

Image: Tim Morgan, Flickr

Survey Published: Qualified Nurse Supply & Demand

A survey has been published looking into the supply and demand of qualified nurses.



The survey has revealed:

• There are 12,566 FTE nurse vacancies across the trusts who responded. This is equivalent to a 10% vacancy rate overall.
• 83% of organisations reported that there are nursing workforce shortages.
• 60 organisations aim to increase qualified nurse numbers, this is as a result of the publication of national safe staffing guidance. 
• Over the past 12 months, 45% of organisations say they have been forced to recruit from overseas, 96% recruited from European Economic Area countries. 
• 8% of organisations have vacancies of 110 to 250 FTE nurses.

Source: Nursing Standard, Vol 28
Image. Fort Meade, Flickr

CQC business plan

The CQC business plan outlines their priorities and what they will achieve by March 2016.

They will:

• put people’s views at the heart of everything they do, improve how they listen to people who use services, the public, and staff providing care.
• introduce the new approach to how they monitor, inspect, regulate and take action, and work with other regulators and partner organisations.
• support their staff to deliver their inspection, monitoring and regulation, by building a new open, transparent culture and managing their resources effectively and efficiently.

Subject to legislation, in October 2014, they will also introduce the Fit and proper persons test for directors or equivalent managers in organisations that provide care, and make a Duty of candour a requirement at registration. This will allow them to be certain that providers will offer safe, caring, effective, responsive and well-led services.

By January 2016, they will have rated every NHS trust. They will begin to rate adult social care services and GP practices from October 2014 and will have completed this by March 2016. Services will be rated as Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement or Inadequate, making their judgements clearer than ever before. This will encourage services to improve and help people to choose care for themselves and their loved ones.

Source: www.cqc.org.uk

Image: Jessica Mullen, Flickr

Close correlation between safety rating and overall rating, says chief inspector of hospitals

Nine out of the 12 NHS trusts inspected earlier this year using CQC's new approach must provide safer services for patients.

Professor Sir Mike Richards told the Patient Safety Congress that out of the acute NHS trusts inspected between January and March this year, eight were rated as "requires improvement" for safety and one as "inadequate". Four trusts received a "good" rating for safety. This contributed to an overall rating of either "requires improvement" or "inadequate" for nine out of the twelve NHS trusts.

Sir Mike was clear that these ratings are not representative of the NHS as a whole; this is because several of the trusts were selected for inspection as they were considered to have a higher than average risk based on the information available.

Sir Mike said: "The findings are based on just 12 inspections. What we found is that there is a close correlation between the rating a trust receives for safety and its overall rating. 

"Fewer hospitals were rated as good for safety than for effectiveness, caring, responsiveness or well-led. Out of the eight core services we looked at, the medical care service is more frequently rated as requiring improvement in safety than in any of the other services."

The safety of services is one of five key areas CQC looks at during every inspection, along with checking that services are effective, responsive, caring and well led.

NHS trusts will be inspected again to check on their progress and CQC will report on its findings.

The twelve trusts that were inspected, together with their safety and overall rating, are:

·       Oxford University Hospital NHS Trust Safety (Good) Overall (Good)

·       Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Safety (Good) Overall (Good)

·       Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Safety (Good) Overall (Good)

·       St George's Healthcare NHS Trust Safety (Requires Improvement) Overall  (Good)

·       University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust Safety (Requires Improvement) Overall (Requires Improvement)

·       Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Safety (Requires Improvement) Overall (Requires Improvement)

·       Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust Safety (Requires Improvement) Overall (Requires Improvement)

·       Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust Safety (Requires Improvement) Overall (Requires Improvement)

·       Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust Safety (Requires Improvement) Overall (Requires Improvement)

·       Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Safety (Requires Improvement) Overall (Requires Improvement)

·       Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust Safety (Requires Improvement) Overall (Requires Improvement)

·       Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Safety (Inadequate) Overall (Inadequate)

Source: www.CQC.org.uk

Image: Must be Art, Flickr

Information Governance Toolkit, Community Pharmacies Exemption for Requirement 319

Community Pharmacies will now be exempt for Requirement 319 of the Information Governance Toolkit. 

It has been confirmed that an exemption has now been applied to Requirement 319 for community pharmacies whilst on-going funding negotiations continue. The exemption will be applied to Version 11 assessments that have already been submitted.

Contractors should have entered Level 2 attainment against Requirement 319 and added the text ‘Exempt as still under negotiation’ in the General Comments. The remaining requirements should have been reviewed and updated as usual, and the assessment should have been published. 

Requirement 319 will need to be completed in version 12 of the Toolkit (scheduled release date June 2014) and PSNC will provide business continuity materials to assist pharmacy contractors to comply with the business continuity planning requirement by 31 March 2015.

The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards and You

The Mental Capacity Act is a law about making decisions and what to do when people cannot make some decisions for themselves. The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards are part of the Mental Capacity Act 2005. 

Sometimes people need treatment or care from people like doctors and nurses or care workers. People who are staying in a hospital or living in a care home should be treated or cared for in a way that means they are safe. They should be free to do the things they want to do. 

The Government has made new rules to make sure that people can be cared for or treated in a way that is right. These rules are called the Mental Capacity Act 2005 Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. 

The leaflet created by the Department of Health tells you all you need to know about these new rules. Go to our website or click here to download the information leaflet. 

Source: www.doh.gov.uk

Image: auserirdische sind gesund