MRSA and other super bugs may be the single biggest challenge facing the

NHS but now a revolutionary technology – Byotrol - developed by a pioneering British company has helped create a hospital in the United States that is free of hospital acquired  MRSA, VRE and C.difficile Monroe Hospital opened in Bloomington Indiana, in October 2006, there has never been a recorded case of hospital acquired MRSA, C.difficile or the VRE Super Bug. VRE is becoming a major issue for the North American healthcare system. James Ballard puts much of this remarkable success story down to the technology provided by a British company, Byotrol, whose anti-microbial technology has helped keep super bugs at bay across the hospital. The hospital treats around 13,000 patients every year and would ordinarily be at high risk of hospital acquired infection because it undertakes around 3,000 bone and joint surgical procedures including hip replacements every year, with many of these being undertaken on older patients.

European Campaign for Safety and Health at Work (October 20-24)

Not only is it your responsibility, as an employer, to have risk management procedures in place, says the British Safety Industry Federation (BSIF), but you’re liable – not your chosen risk assessor  –  if the advice they give is not up to scratch.

‘Risk assessments are obliged by law to be carried out by ‘competent’ people and it’s often difficult – especially for the smaller business with limited resources – to identify that competence,’ says Geoff Hooke, Secretary General of the BSIF, the safety industry’s leading Trade Body, commenting at the time of the European Campaign for Safety and Health at Work that, this year, is focusing on risk assessment.

Compass, the UK and Ireland's largest Contract Catering and Support Services organisation has signed an agreement with mobile compliance software company Knowledge Online to implement its software across its entire UK and Ireland business. The auditing software initially covers Food Safety, Health & Safety and Unit Procedural Audits with other audit areas to follow.

Compass Group (UK & Ireland) aims to speed up the collection of vital field based compliance information whilst reducing the amount of manual intervention required to obtain and collate the results. This will be achieved through utilising the online auditing system provided by Knowledge Online. With over 1.3 million audits conducted each year, there is a vast business benefit to be gained in terms of time saved in report writing and reducing paper-based activity. Compass will also have the benefit of real-time issue and action tracking.

London, 30th September - The BMJ Group, one of the world’s most trusted providers of medical information for doctors, researchers, healthcare workers and patients, announces the launch of a new international advisory board to be chaired by Sir Charles George.

The Board will advise the Group on future trends in healthcare over the next 10–20 years so that the Group can continue to make a real difference in clinical practice and improve outcomes for patients.

Sir Charles George is currently Chairman of the British Medical Association’s Board of Science and Education and Emeritus Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at Southampton University.