A new self-regulatory body for fundraising has been launched in the UK to handle complaints about charities. Members of the public unhappy with a charity’s money-raising activities will now be able to complain to the Funding Standards Board.

St Helens’ plans to redevelop a Larchfield Elderly Persons Home into a state-of-the-art site for independent living received a boost with news that a bid for £5.3 million of grant support has been given the go-ahead by the Department of Health.

Drinking three cups of a coffee a day can significantly reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, research suggests. People getting their regular caffeine fix have half the mental decline of those who do not touch coffee, it shows. But drinking more than three cups does not seem to have a greater protective effect.

Researchers think caffeine may trigger a chain reaction in the brain that counters damage done by Alzheimer’s. But they stress coffee contains other substances that might be of benefit, such as antioxidants. In a report on their findings, they suggested that doctors may one day recommend coffee to the elderly.

“Drinking three cups a day was associated with the smallest cognitive decline,” they told the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. “Because of the worldwide use of coffee and ageing populations, these results could have important public health implications.”

Standards of care are under threat from under-qualified nurses and health workers, experts say. Two leading nurse academics told the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine that NHS care would be better if more nurses had degrees.

{mosimage}Professors Linda Shields and Roger Watson said care was also threatened by the use of poorly qualified staff such as healthcare assistants.

But nursing leaders said the profession was highly skilled and vibrant.

The experts from Hull and Sheffield universities said: “Educating nurses to the highest standards is better for the health of all, and is cost effective.

“The consequences of poor education and mistakes are deaths, so the imperative to educate nurses to the highest standard, to provide them with ways to access the best evidence, the critical thinking skills to use that evidence safely and the skills to generate their own knowledge is mandatory.”

Latest statistics show that just 4% of the nursing workforce have degrees. The professors also argued that nurses were being replaced by less qualified staff. While medicine without nursing was “an untenable concept”, things were heading that way.

This new report published today provides an update and overview of the progress made in implementing the 48 recommendations made in the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD)

Spending on public sector social care services has risen by ten per cent over the past two years, according to figures released today by The Information Centre for health and social care.

The High Court ruled today that the government did not consult with the medical profession, or follow necessary race relations procedures, before restricting employment opportunities for doctors from outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

A more “common sense” approach to human rights laws is needed by public bodies who sometimes misinterpret them, the Lord Chancellor is to say. Lord Falconer has said the importance of the Human Rights Act has been “clouded by nonsense”. 

Social workers came under fire yesterday after an investigation into the abuse of a disabled four-year-old girl described by a detective as “one of the worst cases” he had seen.

The Government should consider stockpiling two types of antiviral drugs to treat people in the event of a bird flu pandemic, according to experts. There are fears that humans could catch the flu from close contact with birds infected with the H5N1 virus and trigger a pandemic.