BackgroundThe Secretary of State for Health has recently committed £4.2 billion to NHS IT, of which £1.8 billion is to be allocated to support the government’s vision for a paperless NHS. To justify this political and financial commitment, it is crucial to look at previous policies and identify areas where lessons can be learned. Our aim was to explore the developments in national NHS IT policy in relation to the implementation of Electronic Patient Records (EPRs) between 1998 and 2015. Methods6 NHS IT policy documents and 10 evaluations of NHS IT policy that were commissioned by NHS England, or the Department of Health, to report on the progress of national policy in achieving its aims met the study’s inclusion criteria. Documents were analysed thematically using a priori themes that were based on the study’s research questions. Socio-technical thinking provided the theoretical framework for interpreting study findings. ResultsSince 1998, there has been inconsistency and uncertainty surrounding the terminology used for EPRs. However, the aims of NHS IT policy have remained relatively unchanged, with all policies striving for integrated electronic records for health and social care within their proposed timescales. Evaluations of policy attributed a range of social and technical factors to why policy has not achieved its aims including: poor programme management, ambitious and ambiguous policy aims, challenges with integrating systems, staff engagement, insufficient infrastructure and poor management of EPR contracts.Conclusion If the NHS is to succeed in implementing integrated electronic patient records, then policy should focus on producing unambiguous, feasible ambitions that use consistent terminology. The lack of detail and consistency in the definitions for EPRs, Integrated Digital Care Records and a paperless NHS needs to be addressed if the NHS is to have a shared sense of purpose and work towards common, unified goals. Lastly, the repetitive nature of policy aims that have remained unchanged since 1998, suggests a lack of reflection, placing the utility and purpose of government commissioned evaluations into question.

Financial literacy is a core life skill for participating in modern society. But how many of us have been educated about money; the importance of budgeting and saving for a rainy day; how bank accounts and debt work and when it makes sense to save for a pension? Our brief research to date indicates a shockingly low level of financial literacy in the general population. And, it does not look like this will get better soon; regarding improving financial literacy, the Financial Services Authority stated in 2003 that “Never has the need been so great or so urgent”. And yet many children will go through school without an hour spent studying financial literacy. Furthermore, efforts to improve financial literacy at older ages are either non-existent or piecemeal at best. The consequences of poor financial literacy are especially damaging for vulnerable people. Vulnerable groups of people are most at risk of making poor financial decisions throughout their lives, which has negative consequences for saving, home ownership, debt levels, retirement and financial inclusion. In this paper, we consider various mechanisms to protect such financial customers, whilst recognising that improving financial literacy is not a silver bullet to improve customer outcomes from financial products. Financial literacy cannot be brought to a point where the public can understand many financial products without support and advice. But surely, awareness of basic financial literacy principles can be raised, including the most important: when to seek support and advice before undertaking important financial decisions. The paper suggests some key principles for financial literacy and will also consider methods and tools to allow the public to access much-needed support and advice.

Mobile devices are becoming a method to provide an efficient and convenient way to access, find and share information; however, the availability of this information has caused an increase in cyber attacks. Currently, cyber threats range from Trojans and viruses to botnets and toolkits. Presently, 96% of mobile devices do not have pre-installed security software while approximately 65% of the vulnerabilities are found within the application layer. This lack in security and policy driven systems is an opportunity for malicious cyber attackers to hack into the various popular devices. Traditional security software found in desktop computing platforms, such as firewalls, antivirus, and encryption, is widely used by the general public in mobile devices. Moreover, mobile devices are even more vulnerable than personal desktop computers because more people are using mobile devices to do personal tasks. This review attempts to display the importance of developing a national security policy created for mobile devices in order to protect sensitive and confidential data.

Our society has become very complexed and the amount of wicked problems has also increased. Diverse and creative thinking, accompanied by affective leadership, are necessary to reduce the symptoms of healthcare inequities, educational disparities, and climate change. Collaboration is a synergistic process that aims to benefit the group exponentially once all stakeholders work together effectively to reach mutual goals. Authentic dialogue is defined as open and honest conversations that abide by the Habermas speech conditions in which fair exchanges of thoughts lead to detecting and correcting errors (or reconciling differences) amongst engaged actors. This paper: (a) defines authentic dialogue and the conditions for this concept to be used effectively; (b) explains collaborative leadership through the diversity, interdependence, authentic dialogue (DIAD) theory, (c) articulates why understanding systems theory will aid leaders in developing better communication skills; (d) concludes with possible limitations and further studies needed about authentic dialogue within the collaborative process.

This study examines the nature of professionals being insider threats to their own organization, as well as the general increase in harder-to-detect threats coming from an ever-widening acceptance of third-party insiders by organizations that rely on them, such as those in the fields of biomedical sciences, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and food production engineering. The current and emerging literature on how individuals are motivated to engage in problematic workplace behaviors as a means of gaining their specific goal or need is examined in this chapter. Following that, the chapter articulates malicious cybersecurity and cyberbiosecurity insider threat indicators and then provides best practices for reducing the risk of these threats in organizations involved in food production engineering, synthetic biology, and artificial intelligence.