Off to a good start: all you need to know about breastfeeding your baby

This book presents the reasons why mothers and babies benefit from breastfeeding and explains how to breastfeed successfully. It covers issues including how breastfeeding works, positioning and attachment, how to know if breastfeeding is going well, expressing milk, breastfeeding and babies in special care, advice on breastfeeding and bed-sharing, dealing with common problems, fitting breastfeeding into your life, and going back to work.

Breastfeeding - good for mums too

This poster promotes breastfeeding and highlights the benefits for the mother.

30 minutes of physical activity a day is good for your health

This poster promotes the message that 30 minutes of moderate physical activity a day has substantial health benefits, and highlights the fact that you don’t have to do 30 minutes all in one go.

Good Practice Guides

This series of Good Practice Guides is designed to share important information about health inequalities and some of the evidence-based measures that can be taken to reduce the stark differences in health and wellbeing within populations. It is recognised that leadership and coordinated, effective action at a number of levels can reduce this gap. Ensuring concerted, evidence-based action on health and wellbeing inequalities demands the efforts of government, statutory organisations and the community, voluntary and private sectors. The Good Practice Guides were developed to inform and support joined-up working across these sectors. It is known that health inequalities are closely linked with degrees of social disadvantage and with the unequal distribution of power, income, goods and services. According to the World Health Organization, there are also powerful social and psychological factors and life circumstances that can serve to compound health and wellbeing inequalities. The topics included in the Good Practice Guide series reflect the wider determinants of health and the range of approaches necessary to reduce health inequalities. This first set of three guides is designed, in part, to test their usefulness. There are many other issues and areas where evidence of what works may be needed. It is envisaged that further guides will follow on other issues. All of the guides will be kept under review and amended in light of experience.

What Kind of Justice Today ? Expectations Of 'Good Justice', Convergences And Divergences Between Managerial And Judicial Actors And How They Fit Within Management-Oriented Values

This research aims toward a better understanding of the organizational culture(s) of the judiciary in Switzerland by analysing what 'good justice' means nowadays in this country. It seeks to clarify whether, and to what extent, expectations of 'good justice' of judicial actors (judges without managerial experience) and of managerial actors (court managers) are similar and to describe possible managerial implications that may result from this. As judges are at the heart of the judicial organization and exert a strong influence on other groups of actors (Sullivan, Warren et al. 1994), the congruence of their expectations with those of court managers will be at the centre of the analysis. Additionally, referring to the conceptual worlds of Boltanski and Thévenaut (1991), we analyze how closely these expectations are to management-oriented values. We found that almost half of expectations are common to the two groups examined and the main quoted ones are compatible to new public management (NPM) concepts. On the other hand, those expectations shared exclusively by judges relate to the human side of justice, whereas those specific to court managers focus on the way justice functions.

A good practice guide for school food initiatives

This Guide was developed through extensive consultation with schools, community groups, health professionals and suppliers who are currently involved in providing food in school. Research was also conducted on approaches in Northern Ireland and in other countries. Finally, we consulted with Government and social partner stakeholders at national level to get their views as to the main issues to be addressed.

How much salt is good for you?

We all know that too much salt is bad for our hearts. But the fact is that even if you completely stopped adding salt to your food you'd still be 100% over the recommended daily allowance. How? Because between 65% and 70% of the salt we actually eat comes from processed food, fast food, and canteen and restaurant food – so you're seasoning your heart without realising it. So what can you do?

A good practice guide for community food initiatives

Food and nutrition are key determinants of health. What people eat, and how much they eat, influences how healthy they are, and even how long they live. Food poverty arises when people lack the money or other resources needed to eat a healthy diet. The overarching objective of Healthy Food for All is to end food poverty on the island of Ireland.

Good quality parenting programmes and the home to school transition

Evidence Review 1 - Good quality parenting programmes and the home to school transition Briefing 1a - Good Quality Parenting Programmes Briefing 1b - Improving the Home to School Transition This set of documents, commissioned by Public Health England (PHE£0, and written by the UCL Institute of Health Equity, address the effects of parenting and good transition on the health and wellbeing of children aged 0-5. They also provide case studies, and examples of good practice for local areas. Evaluations from the UK and other countries show a positive effect of parenting interventions on outcomes and behaviours that we know are linked to positive health and development outcomes for children. Home to school transition programmes can be effective in improving the outcomes for children from more disadvantaged socio-economic groups more than for children from more advantaged socio-economic groups, although longer term impact on health inequalities can only be inferred because the impact on health has not been studied. The full evidence review and two shorter summary briefings are available to download above. This document is part of a series. An overview document which provides an introduction to this and other documents in the series, and links to the other topic areas, is available on the ‘Local Action on health inequalities’ project page. A video of Michael Marmot introducing the work is also available on our videos page.

Good Practice Guides: Reducing young people's drinking

Actions to tackle health inequalities demand the efforts of government, statutory organisations, and community, voluntary and private sectors. This Good Practice Guide to reducing young people's drinking is one of a series designed to capture information about health inequalities and highlight evidence-based interventions and key actions for improvement across sectors.This resource was contributed by The National Documentation Centre on Drug Use.

Whole-person care: from rhetoric to reality. Achieving parity between mental and physical health.

The report presents evidence on a range of factors affecting disparity between mental and physical health, and includes case studies and examples of good practice to illustrate some of the key issues and solutions. It should be seen as the first stage of an on-going process over the next 5"10 years that will deliver parity for mental health and make whole-person care a reality. It builds on the Implementation Framework for the Mental Health Strategy in providing further analysis of why parity does not currently exist, and the actions required to bring it about. A parity approach should enable NHS and local authority health and social care services to provide a holistic, whole person response to each individual, whatever their needs, and should ensure that all publicly funded services, including those provided by private organisations, give people's mental health equal status to their physical health needs. Central to this approach is the fact that there is a strong relationship between mental health and physical health, and that this influence works in both directions. Poor mental health is associated with a greater risk of physical health problems, and poor physical health is associated with a greater risk of mental health problems. Mental health affects physical health and vice versa. The report makes a series of key recommendations for the UK government, policy-makers and health professionals. Recommendations include: The government and the NHS Commissioning Board should work together to give people equivalent levels of access to treatment for mental health problems as for physical health problems, agreed standards for waiting times, and agreed standards for emergency/crisis mental healthcare. Action to promote good mental health and to address mental health problems needs to start at the earliest stage of a person's life and continue throughout the life course. Preventing premature mortality " there must be a major focus on improving the physical health of people with mental health problems. Public health programmes must include a focus on the mental health dimension of issues commonly considered as physical health concerns, such as smoking, obesity and substance misuse. Commissioners need to regard liaison doctors (who work across physical and mental healthcare) as an absolute necessity rather than an optional luxury. NHS and social care commissioners should commission liaison psychiatry and liaison physician services to drive a whole-person, integrated approach to healthcare in acute, secure, primary care and community settings, for all ages. Mental health services and mental health research must receive funding that reflects the prevalence of mental health problems and their cost to society. Mental illness is responsible for the largest proportion of the disease burden in the UK (22.8%), larger than that of cardiovascular disease (16.2%) or cancer (15.9%). However, only 11% of the NHS budget was spent on NHS services to treat mental health problems for all ages during 2010/11. Culture, attitudes and stigma " zero-tolerance policies in relation to discriminatory attitudes or behaviours should be introduced in all health settings to help combat the stigma that is still attached to mental illness within medicine. Political and managerial leadership is required at all levels. There should be a mechanism at national level for driving a parity approach to relevant policy areas across government; all local councils should have a lead councillor for mental health; all providers of specialist mental health services should have a board-level lead for physical health and all providers of physical healthcare services should have a board-level lead for mental health. The General Medical Council (GMC) and Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) should consider how medical and nursing study and training could give greater emphasis to mental health. Mental and physical health should be integrated within undergraduate medical education.This resource was contributed by The National Documentation Centre on Drug Use.

Blanchardstown Good Food Cooperative

Blanchardstown Good Food Cooperative aims to establish a Good Food Network in Dublin 15 to raise awareness of and seek to reduce food poverty. Part of theCFI Programme 2013-2015 Initiative Type Nutrition Education and Training Programmes Location Dublin 15 Partner Agencies safefood Website http://www.bap.ie/food-thought

Tackling Child Obesity - First Steps

Obesity is a complex public health issue that is a growing threat to children۪s health, as well as a current and future drain on National Health Service (NHS) resources. The Wanless Report stated that public health the promotion of good health and the prevention of disease should be central to the work of the NHS.2 Obesity already costs the NHS directly around 1 billion a year and the UK economy a further 2.3 to 2.6 billion in indirect costs. If this present trend continues, by 2010 the annual cost to the economy could be 3.6 billion a year. This joint report from the Audit Commission, Healthcare Commission and the National Audit Office aims to identify how the barriers to creating a successful delivery chain can be addressed and makes recommendations about how the delivery chain might be strengthened and made more efficient as part of the need for the Departments to contribute to the Government۪s wider efficiency programme.

Are We Choosing Health? Annual Public Health Report from Healthcare Commission and Audit Commission

A new report by the Healthcare Commission and Audit Commission assesses the impact government policy has had on: narrowing health inequalities; improving sexual and mental health; and reducing smoking, alcohol misuse and obesity.

Closing the gap (Care Quality Commission national study)

Closing the gap: Tackling cardiovascular disease and health inequalities by prescribing statins and stop smoking services