Care Sector News Review: February

Find out all the latest news regarding care services, medical research and awareness initiatives with The Good Care Group.

Welcome back for the February edition of Care Sector News Review.

Each month, we’ll bring you a digest of the latest news regarding care services, medical research and awareness initiatives.

Read on to learn more about what happened across the care sector in February:

Care services

• Life expectancy is set to increase rapidly in the period up to 2030, according to scientists from Imperial College London and the World Health Organisation. While life expectancy surpassing 90 years of age, as is expected in South Korea, is undoubtedly a welcome development, it raises questions over which care model will be best suited to supporting an ageing population.
• Sheffield Council have announced their intention to reappraise their care budget, with a view to saving almost £10m through initiatives such as improved early care intervention. It’s hoped this will also result in fewer people becoming reliant on long-term support.
• A new app has been developed by a Finnish tech firm that aims to provide older people with more social opportunities. The app – created by Circly – has similarities with Skype and other video calling technology, but has been extensively simplified for older people to use.

Medical research

• University College London has been selected as the base for the brand new UK Dementia Research Institute. The institute was founded by the Medical Research Council, Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK, having jointly pledged £250m in funding.
• The first strong evidence of how Parkinson’s spreads in the brain has been published in the Scientific Reports Nature journal. The team behind the study come from the University of Auckland, and have discovered that pathological proteins can spread from one cell to another.
• A new study from the US has drawn a link between mental health conditions and the likelihood of suffering a stroke. People with conditions such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were found to be three and a half times more likely to have a stroke.

Awareness initiatives

• February marked Raynaud’s Awareness Month 2017, 28 days of events designed to increase awareness of the condition and raise funds towards potential treatments. The condition affects around one in six people in the UK, and can lead to secondary conditions that affect older people in particular.
• Eating Disorders Awareness Week commenced on 27 February. While much focus is usually placed on younger people with eating disorders, they can and do affect people of all ages and genders. This year’s theme has been early intervention.

Join us again in the last week of March for the next edition of Care Sector News Review.

If you would like to find out more about how The Good Care Group works to improve care standards across the industry, contact our friendly team.