Campaigners are set to learn if they have won their High Court battle over the availability of Alzheimer’s drugs for people with early-stage disease. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) ruled donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine were not cost-effective in such cases.

{mosimage}But critics argue the decision process was flawed and did not take into account the benefits to carers. It is the first time a judicial review has been sought on a NICE decision.

Drugs company Eisai brought the case to the High Court with support from fellow drugs firm Pfizer and the Alzheimer’s Society. During the four-day hearing, which took place in June, lawyers representing Eisai said NICE and its appeal panel failed to assess properly the issues.

They argued that NICE did not properly evaluate the impact of the drugs on the quality of life of carers and that the figures on the cost of long-term care used in their analysis were too low. They also questioned the accuracy of the test used to determine the severity of a patient’s Alzheimer’s.

NICE guidance in 2001 recommended the drugs – which can make it easier to carry out everyday tasks – should be used as standard. But guidance published in November 2006, after months of appeals, stated that the drugs should only be prescribed to people with moderate-stage disease.

NICE said the drugs, which cost about £2.50 a day, did not make enough of a difference to recommend them for all patients and were not good value for money. Campaigners are angry that people suffering from Alzheimer’s have to get worse before they are eligible for treatment.

A 17-year-old has been arrested in Cambridge over the murder of youth worker Nathan Foster in south London. Mr Foster, 18, was found by police with bullet wounds on Friday night in Marcus Garvey Way near Brixton Tube station.

Tackling underachievement and a “culture of low aspiration” in black boys could boost the economy by £24 billion in the next 50 years, according to a report published today.

Mental health care and cell overcrowding at a Cambridgeshire prison have been criticised for a second time. An inspection at Littlehey Prison, Perry, said “nothing had changed” since similar findings were disclosed last year.

A care assistant who covered an elderly dementia sufferer’s head with a plastic bag as a punishment has been convicted of ill treatment of a patient. Liudas Poderis, 35, attacked Stanley Kelly, 88, at Southfield nursing home in Wilmslow, Cheshire, last November.

Use of medicines to prevent disease may not prolong or improve life in elderly people, say doctors. Drugs such as statins, prescribed to combat heart disease, may simply switch the cause of death to cancer or dementia in older people, they warn.

Conditions at Pentonville prison are “a matter of deep shame”, according to a report published by the prisons watchdog. The independent monitoring board found evidence of “endemic squalour” and rat and cockroach infestations in the north London prison, which was built in 1842 and has the capacity to house 1,127 inmates.

While many people in the UK say they are scared by people with mental health problems, many also realise the positive qualities of people who suffer from mental illness, according to research commissioned by the Priory Group.