A £690,000 funding boost for communities in St Helens will help local people to lead more physically and mentally fit lifestyles. The funding is the St. Helens share of Target: Well-being, managed by Groundwork, which is an £8.9m major new regional programme awarded by the Big Lottery Fund.

A number of cancer patients denied a new drug by the NHS may get free treatment as part of a clinical trial taking place in Manchester. The drug Sutent can in some cases prolong the lives of patients with kidney cancer.

Four people have been charged with ill treatment or neglect of residents at a Gloucester residential home which has been under investigation for more than two years. They are all due to face Gloucester Magistrates later this month, together with a representative of the company which runs the home.

Smokers are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia as nonsmokers, doctors have warned. More than 700,000 Brits have dementia – of whom two thirds have Alzheimer’s. But by 2025, that number is set to rise to more than a million.

Local authorities have achieved their target of enabling more than 60,000 new users to benefit from telecare in the last financial year using the first part of the two year Preventative Technology (PT) grant.

Ambitious proposals that will cut the length of time it takes for people to receive social care are being discussed by Devon County Council. It would mean that people with relatively simple care requirements will get what services they need very quickly, significantly reducing current waiting times.

Palliative care should become a core part of training for all health professionals, a report by Help the Hospices has recommended. The national hospices charity has made a number of suggestions to help shape the DoH’s end of life care strategy for adults in England.

The whole population and every UK visitor should be added to the national DNA database, a senior judge has said. Lord Justice Sedley said the current database, which holds DNA from crime suspects and scenes, was “indefensible” because it was unfair and inconsistent.

Children with asthma are missing out on the best drug treatment for their disease, because family doctors are ignoring prescribing guidelines, suggests research published ahead of print in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

A report into the death of the youngest person to die in custody has called for sweeping changes to how children are dealt with in the youth justice system. Adam Rickwood, 14, hanged himself at Hassockfield Secure Training Centre (STC) in County Durham in 2004.