Bludgeoned

We've had a bit of a campaign recently to get rid of some of the stray boxes in the library. Today I hit some stuff that arrived from who knows where that has been cluttering the far end of the library. Loads of old copies of 'The Executive Council' from the late 50s through to the early 70's by the Society of Clerks of National Health Service Executive Councils. Bet they had a banging annual dinner dance......

Anatomy of an Enquiry

Get a call from one of the people for whom I will drop everything to deal with them. They are doing a presentation and need some figures like yesterday. Thankfully after years in this place I have good contacts in information who can give me a starter for 10, so I ring the lovely Fiona who kicks off the doodling. Such a good shortcut and she reminds me of Val the queen of mortality who is not unfortunately not in. Anyway this happens, scrappy notes to myself as I make sense of something. Its about as close as I'm gonna get to getting the thought process on paper!

anyway the outcome is that I now know following a quick bit of maths etc. that

1 in 7 Children in Reception Year and Year 6 are Obese in the north west¹

On average 290 people visit North West Accident and Emergency Departments an Hour²

1 in 4 People in the North West will die of Cancer³

On average in England 11 ambulances are answering emergency calls a minute. One of these will be in the north west. An additional 20 ambulances will be doing routine non emergency calls nationally during that minute of which 4 will be in the north west⁴

30 million days were lost overall (1.3 days per worker), 24 million due to work-related ill health and 6 million due to workplace injury.⁵

¹NWPHO (2007) Measuring Childhood Obesity in the North West Data Supplement. Liverpool Northwest Public Health Observatory.

²DoH (2007) Hospital Activity Statistics. London: DOH

³NWPHO (2006) Where wealth means health. Liverpool Northwest Public Health Observatory.

⁴ONS (2007) Ambulance Services, England 2005-06. London ONS

⁵http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/index.htm

With my antelope cheek and my raven's eye

Day spent on FoI work. I scream along AM. Despair by lunchtime, call Jim. Sort myself out, dig in for the afternoon. Bring more home with me and decide I've had enough during the day. Tempted to reach for the bottle of Bush. Beryl calls with a query, get her to send it to Tracy, yell out a route to an answer and Tracy fills in the gaps. I'm impressed given the instructions were telegraphic to say the least.

PM Marie calls in search of the circular that ushered in the Safe Haven Policy. I'd offer her a link to George but reckon it'd be a waste of breath. Thakfully Tobias' book on 'Information Governance Toolkit' comes to the rescue. Simple lateral search involving an index and references. Marie and I mutter dark things about youngsters and not looking in hard copy. I'm feeling like an old lag and I've hardly got any time in (14 years last count). The enquiries are a bit of light relief. 'Nother thing sorted for the M inquiry.

Home, feed the family and take Monst to work. Put Cal to bed and sit in front of 'Life on Mars'. Decide I've had enough of reading other peoples e-mails right now.

Ken has a pointer to whichbook.net. I play with it and it recommends me at least one book which I know and love. Handy little tool and I love the link to local public libraries. Pity I don't use the things. Top stuff.

Scream!

Technorati Tags: Life on Mars; FoI; Bush; Nancy Whiskey; Library Enquiries; NHS Circulars ; Safe Haven Policy