Top headlines
GPC to submit mass resignations once 60% of practices opt in
GP workforce shrunk over the past year in major blow to 5,000 target
14:20 Ex-Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that he has become president of Alzheimer’s Research UK. According to the Telegraph, Mr Cameron said he was: ‘delighted to take up the Presidency of Alzheimer’s Research UK, an ambitious charity driving medical research to fight this devastating condition.
‘As well as being a world-leading research organisation, the charity is also fighting the misconceptions of dementia that persist in society. Dementia is not inevitable and research is our greatest weapon against it.’
As Prime Minister, in 2012 he set up the Prime Minister’s Dementia Challenge, aiming to find a treatment or cure for dementia by 2025.
Chief Executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK, Hilary Evans, said: ‘As a world leader, Mr Cameron has done more than any other to put dementia on the global agenda… David Cameron’s support of our work will help us continue our positive growth and further bolster our research efforts, through which we will end the fear, harm and heartbreak of dementia.’
11:15 The Times is reporting that racist attacks on NHS staff have more than doubled in a year, with Brexit blamed.
Figures obtained seem to show that assaults on health service employees involving religious or racial factors rose from 225 in 2014-15 to 496 in the following year. This year, there were 320 attacks up to the end of October, which is on course to top 500 by April.
Anthea Mowat, chair of the BMA’s representative body, said the figures were a ’wake-up call’.
9:20 The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have released an in-depth report, which shows that child health in the UK is lagging behind that of most other European countries, raising particular concerns over rates of obesity, mental health issues and mortality among the young.
It emphasised that poverty was at the root of many child health problems, the BBC reports.
The report looked at 25 health indicators, including asthma, diabetes and epilepsy, as well as obesity, breastfeeding and mortality, and found there had been a ’slowing of progress’ on the indicators since the mid-90s.
It found that in 2014, the UK had a higher infant mortality rate (of 3.9 per 1,000 live births) than nearly all comparable Western European countries.
Seen something interesting? Email newsdesk@pulsetoday.co.uk or tweet @pulsetoday with the hashtag #GPnews
Pulse Writing Competition 2024
Fancy yourself as the next Pulse blogger? Enter our writing competition now!
