15th Jan 2021 Friday FivePlan to discharge Covid patients to care homes in England is ‘madness’ Care home providers have branded the plan to discharge Covid patients from hospitals into care homes without tests as “madness”, warning the move risks a repeat of last spring’s crisis, which was partly fuelled by pressure to relieve the NHS. The Department of…
15th Jan 2021 Friday FiveNICE collaboration creates new route for medicines approval A collaboration between the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), NHS England and NHS Improvement and equivalent organisation in Scotland has created a new route for medicine approval within the UK. The new Innovative Licencing…
15th Jan 2021 Friday Five The new coronavirus variant – how was it picked up, what is the mutation and how dangerous is it? On December 14, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced a new variant of coronavirus has been identified in England and that its numbers ”are increasing rapidly”. Government scientists have been carrying out random genetic analysis of ~10%…
15th Jan 2021 Friday FiveAre rich countries hoarding Covid-19 vaccine from the world’s poor? Most of the world’s poor will go without a coronavirus vaccine because rich countries are hoarding enough doses to immunise their populations three times over, an international watchdog has said. In the developed world, nations representing only 14% of the world’s population have already bought…