The Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health Trust is establishing a pioneering £13.7 million dementia centre. The new and unique dementia intensive care unit will be built at the Julian Hospital site in Nowich and will extend the present provision at Hellesdon Hospital site. The extra beds are in expectation of the likely rise in cases of dementia in the future.
A new report published by the UK Drug Policy Commission criticises the police in the UK for being too heavy handed with arrests of drug dealers. The study maintains that drug dealers are easily replaced and a better policy would be better treatment for addicts and dealers alike.
A study in the British Journal of Psychology maintains that women and men use different pathways in the brain and therefore see things differently.A Canadian study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine warns of the risks for elderly diabetics who take antipsychotic drugs for dementia. These patients over 66 years of age have a higher hospitalisation rate due to higher blood glucose levels known as hyperglycemia.
A new survey from the Time to Change campaign has found that most British citizens would either cancel or change their holiday plans rather than share the trip with a friend who has a mental illness. Such is the stigma still associated with mental health problems, people would rather go away with a friend who had a criminal record.
Scientists at the University of Liverpool have published interim results of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that suggest the anti-epilepsy drug has an effect on the IQ of children. Children aged three years and below, born to women who took the drug sodium valproate whilst pregnant, are likely to have an IQ which is lower than the average by six to nine points.
The outgoing chief executive of the charity Combat Stress, Commodore Toby Elliott, has ctiticised the care given to veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq who are suffering mental health problems, particularly post traumatic stress disorder. The charity which treats veterans with psychological problems has 300 former personnel under its care at the present time. Commodore Elliot stated that the NHS provides care for less than half the 9000 patients registered with the charity and that the six pilot NHS schemes were inadequate.
A report, Coercion and Consent, published by the Mental Health Act Commission (MHCA), now part of the Care Quality Commission has stated that mental health care is still variable from service to service and patients have the right to a better standard of care. A third of the mental health patients who committed suicide, where supposed to be under surveillance according to the report. The Care Quality Commission has responded to the report voicing its own major concerns.
