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** 30 July 2021
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** UK
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** More details emerge of government thinking on levelling up (#1)
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** The Integrator: What the leaked draft ICS constitution tells us (#2)
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** International
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** Smoking ban and alcohol pricing being considered in Guernsey and Alderney (#3)
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** BeachBot: The robot that picks up cigarette butts from the beach (#4)
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** Link of the Week
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** University of Oxford Podcast: Let's Talk E-Cigarettes (#5)
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** UK
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The Government’s levelling up advisor Neil O’Brien has shed more light on the key policy areas that will form the focus for the levelling up white paper expected later this year.
On a ministerial webinar call with local government representatives on Tuesday, O’Brien said that the “sorts of headings” his team are working on are “the sort of things that a number of the [metro] mayors have been working on over the last couple of years, or have had devolution of”. O’Brien referred to examples like the devolution of the adult skills budget to metro mayors in recent years. He said that the Government hoped to provide “devolution of power to the roughly 70% of England that doesn't have it at the moment”.
O’Brien also suggested that the government could potentially use county deals to devolve “all the things that we’ve devolved to the largest cities through the [mayoral combined authority] deals”. He said that the county deals process would be used to tackle specific local problems, “so if there's a particular burning local concern that you've got and at the moment you don't have the tools to address it, then that is exactly the sort thing we want to tackle through the county deals process.”
O’Brien also cited the importance of “public service outcomes”, “pride in place”, “physical regeneration”, and “local leadership and sense of community” to levelling-up. He said that levelling-up was about “how do you get more good high-tech, high-wage jobs into places".
Source: LGC, 29 July 2021
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** Health Service Journal (HSJ) senior correspondent Shannon Brennan reminds us what the leaked draft version of the model constitution NHS England will ask each Integrated Care System (ICS) to use, seen by HSJ, reveals to us.
The 42 ICSs will be led by an integrated care board (ICB) with at least five executive directors plus three non-executives. The draft constitution says all the directors must be “willing to uphold” the seven Nolan principles (selflessness, integrity, openness, honesty, accountability, objectivity, and leadership). Brennan says that more and more boards would like to add representatives from public health and mental health but with some ICSs with boards of over 20 members, there is mindfulness that NHSE would like to avoid “large or unwieldy boards”.
The leaked constitution document says that the draft constitutions of each ICS must be approved by NHS England. It shows the control NHSE will exercise over ICSs even after they become statutory bodies as NHSE’s chief executive can “terminate” the appointment of an ICB CEO and “direct” the appointment of their replacement. They can also remove the chair from office “at their discretion” as long as the health secretary agrees.
Brennan adds that ICSs have five choices about how to set up the rules governing ’places’ within each ICS. The bodies overseeing ‘place’-based activity could be: i) a consultative forum that “informs” ICS decisions but holds little real power ii) a joint committee between the ICB and one or more provider iii) a lead provider managing resources under contract by the ICB iv) a committee of the ICB with delegated authority to take decisions about the use of resources iv), a group of individual ICB directors with delegated authority. The final two options are most like how ‘place’ was expected to function but the first three are likely to be more appealing with the limited time available.
Source: HSJ, 29 July 2021
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** International
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** The Guernsey and Alderney government has released a new strategy with a five-year government action plan which proposed a ban on smoking in cars, additional regulations for e-cigarettes, and minimum alcohol pricing. The strategy aims to reduce harm caused by alcohol, drugs and tobacco and says substance use should be seen primarily as a health issue.
Source: ITV, 30 July 2021
See also: Guernsey Government - Combined Substance Use Strategy for Guernsey and Alderney 2021-2026 - Drugs, Alcohol and Tobacco ([link removed])
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** Dutch engineers working with Delft University of Technology has invented a new BeachBot, an autonomous robot capable of picking up cigarette butts from the ground. The robot is fitted with sensors which have the ability to identify cigarette butts on beaches.
To pick up the butts, the robot uses two gripper arms which it lowers and can dig into the sand. It throws the butts into an internal container. BeachBot uses artificial intelligence and image detection algorithms to distinguish a cigarette butt from other objects and trash on the beach. To do this, the TechTics team which produced the robot had to train the vehicle and its AI using photos of cigarette butts in various forms. Currently, BeachBot can run autonomously for one hour. While the robot is still in an early prototype stage, TechTics, is promising future progress.
Source: The Star, 30 July 2021
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** Link of the Week
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** Dr Jamie Hartmann-Boyce and Dr Nicola Lindson discuss emerging evidence in e-cigarette research. In this episode, they talk to Dr Katie Myers Smith from Queen Mary University of London about her team's recent study looking at e-cigarettes versus nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) as a harm reduction intervention for people who smoke and who find quitting difficult.
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