This week, WaterAid launches a new report Transforming Health Systems: the vital role of water, sanitation and hygiene – at the World Health Health Assembly. Following Antonio Guterre’s call for the international community to prioritise water, sanitation and hygiene in health-care facilities, the report offers an action plan for change. You can find out more information about it in the press release below.

A year on from the largest ever survey of people with dementia ‘Turning up the Volume’, to gather a full picture of living with dementia today, Alzheimer’s Society talked to more than 500 people affected by dementia and those working with them - and it’s clear the same problems persist, as the first ever Dementia Action Week (21-27 May) launches. Alarmingly, people reported the loss of their friends and social life post diagnosis, facing isolation caused by public stigma, fear and misunderstandings of dementia, and of how to interact with people living with the condition. 

Over one hundred delegates from across industries gathered at City Hall today to share their plans to bring the Mayor of London’s vision of a dementia-friendly capital to life.

In response to the Prime Minister's announcement on the first major mission of the Ageing Grand Challenge Jeremy Hughes, Chief Executive of Alzheimer Society, said: “This announcement is ideally timed, at the start of Dementia Action Week, highlighting the importance of Government addressing dementia and the ageing population urgently.

Theresa May will today challenge the NHS to step up its use of "smart technology"  to prevent more than 20,000 cancer-related deaths every year.

International trade minister Greg Hands has promised to protect the NHS from US attempts to force the service to pay more for prescription drugs. 

An assisted dying proposal in the States of Guernsey has today (Friday 18th May) been voted down by Deputies on the island. Deputies had earlier in the week defeated a wrecking amendment that would have denied the people of Guernsey a full debate on the subject.

As part of Mental Health Awareness Week, Paula Sherriff MP, Labour’s Shadow Minister for Mental Health and Social Care writes on PoliticsHome for the need for greater attention to women and girls mental health.

An Alzheimer’s Society investigation has discovered tens of thousands of people with dementia each year are being admitted to A&E because inadequate social care is leaving them unprotected from falls and infections.

During Mental Health Awareness Week, Sarah Newton, Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work writes for PoliticsHome on the link between mental health and the workplace, and Government action to support people with this.

In response to a study, published in JAMAPsychiatry today showing the link between wealth and dementia risk Dr Doug Brown, Chief Policy and Research Officer at Alzheimer Society says:  “With the number of people living with dementia set to rise from 850,000 to 1 million by 2021, understanding and developing ways to slow this increase is more important than ever. This new research shows that groups of people with less money have a higher risk of developing dementia, possibly because they are more likely to have poorer medical care.

Ex-World Cup ’66 team member Ray Wilson has passed away aged 83, after living with Alzheimer’s disease for 14 years.

 

The Health Foundation and The King’s Fund have highlighted a worrying lack of progress on social care reform, in extensive new analysis of funding pressures and options for change. 

This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week takes stress as its theme and asks the question: ‘Are we coping?’. Many men struggle to confront the answer, so it’s vital that we continue to raise awareness says Jackie Doyle-Price, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Mental Health and Inequalities. 

Hft, a national charity that supports adults with learning disabilities, has welcomed the news that the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has written to Jeremy Hunt calling for the NHS pay deal to be extended to those working in social care. Since February 2016, Hft has run their It Doesn’t Add Up campaign, which warns of financial pressures facing the social care sector from unfunded increases in the National Living Wage. The charity believes that the RCN call for action is a welcome step, but that it will only work if local authorities are given adequate funding to meet growing wage bills.

Medicines Discovery Catapult, the Centre for Drug Safety Sciences at the University of Liverpool and the NC3Rs combine forces to propel the UK into the race to advance organ on a chip technology.

Theresa May today led MPs in heartfelt tributes to the late Dame Tessa Jowell, who died this weekend after a battle with brain cancer.

After raising the issue in the Commons last week, Chair of the Education Select Committee, Robert Halfon MP,  writes on the importance of nursing apprenticeships for PoliticsHome.

The Government will double its annual spend on tackling brain cancer in memory of the late Tessa Jowell, Theresa May has said.

Jeremy Hughes, Chief Executive at Alzheimer Society, said: “The impact of Dame Barbara Windsor and her husband Scott speaking out about her dementia diagnosis has been instant and impressive.

Luciana Berger has hit out at the head of Unite over a “grossly offensive” article in which he accused Labour MPs of using the row over anti-Semitism to undermine Jeremy Corbyn.

Jeremy Hughes, Chief Executive Officer at Alzheimer’s Society, says: "We were saddened to hear that Barbara Windsor has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease - but we applaud her husband Scott’s decision to speak out about her condition.

NHS staff will no longer share patient data with the Home Office to assist with immigration inspections, ministers have announced in an embarrassing climbdown.

NHS England must involve autistic people and their families in the development of the autism mental health care pathway and put them at the centre of any reforms that they are leading, says Lord Touhig.