Williams Medical Supplies has won a prestigious national award for outstanding business performance - for the fifth time in succession.

Plain Healthcare Limited has launched a web version of Odyssey TeleAssess to help patients with self assessment.

Unilabs iPOCT has become the first laboratory to be granted UK accreditation for point-of-care testing. iPOCT, a leader in the European diagnostic service industry, worked closely with UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service) and CPA (Clinical Pathology Accreditation) to undergo assessment for the accreditation, which is a key element of building and maintaining confidence in providers of point-of-care testing.

NHS Sheffield is targeting deprived areas of the city in a bid to bring standards up to reduce the divide that separates them from wealthier and healthier areas of the city. Each deprived area has been brought under a programme of Enhanced Public Health. A plan is specifically developed and delivered in partnership with the local community.

In the space of just a few years NHS Sheffield has improved its ratings from "weak and weak" to "good and good" in 2009. These latest ratings from the Care Quality Commission have been achieved by sheer hard work and the results have been worth it - more people in Sheffield now have shorter waiting times, and fewer hospital and community infections. The PCT also cleared historic debts totalling 30 million pounds by the end of the financial year 2008. This has allowed the PCT to invest in improving services in deprived areas of the city.

People living with long-term conditions can now care for and educate themselves about their condition by logging on to a new website launched by NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney.

The Carers' Centre Hull has just launched a research project to investigate the challenges and difficulties facing people who work while also caring for someone else. The project called "Caring at Work" aims to identify what can be done and by whom to help carers who are seeking employment, strategies for coping adopted by carers who are already in employment and good practices for employers of persons who are also carers.

PCTs in Wolverhampton, Sandwell, Dudley and Walsall are paying attention to what makes local people happy in a bid to improve mental health and wellbeing. It's thought that patients who are happy and positive do better than those who are not, and that lack of happiness leads to feelings of depression and declining mental health.

By Norma Beavers

Should the growing obesity epidemic be managed by GPs and their teams or by pharmacists? Should obese patients rely on expensive gastric banding operations to solve their weight problems? Or can GPs work in association with community pharmacists to manage the majority of patients and refer extreme cases for surgery at a hospital?

NHS Hull has launched PhysioDirect, a telephone helpline for people who are affected by back or joint pain, including conditions such as arthritis. The new service is being delivered in partnership with East Riding and Hull Therapy Services Partnership, part of NHS East Riding of Yorkshire, in a bid to help more people manage their conditions and reduce the time patients spend waiting for physiotherapy services