General News
DH: From 1 April 2008, a specialised service at six centres across the UK will allow selected people with Type 1 diabetes to live free from the risk of blackouts and hospital admissions associated with hypoglycaemia (Hypoglycaemia is the medical term for low blood glucose).
The Department of Health will invest up to £2.34m in islet transplant services in the first year, increasing to a maximum of £7.32m to meet the predicted annual need in the longer term. People receiving the treatment will be injected with insulin producing islets, taken from a donated pancreas. Each of them will have suffered from recurrent hypoglycaemia or have had a kidney transplant.
Press release ~ Diabetes National Service Framework (NSF) ~ Developing a Diabetes Service: Using the Diabetes Commissioning Toolkit ~ Living with diabetes: your future and wellbeing ~ Current and Future Research on Diabetes: a Review for the Department of Health and the Medical Research Council ~ Organs for transplants: a report from the Organ Donation Taskforce ~ Diabetes UK ~ National Commissioning Group (NCG)
DfT: The streets of Hampshire, Southampton and West Sussex are set to benefit from a record £225m in Private Finance Initiative investment, Transport Minister Rosie Winterton has announced. It will allow Hampshire County Council, Southampton City Council and West Sussex County Council to upgrade 165,000 streetlights over the next 25 years.
The next stage in the process is for the Councils to select a potential partner who will undertake the work. When this is complete, work could start in 2009 in each area.
Press release ~ CLG Public Private Partnerships - Private Finance Initiative ~ Highway Electrical UK ~ Hampshire street lighting ~ 4ps Project Support - West Sussex Street Lighting ~ DfT - Street lighting
ScotGov: Celebrity chef and cook school proprietor Nick Nairn has launched the first video blog on the national food discussion. The blog is now live online, giving people the opportunity to have their say on the future of Scottish food.
Listen to Nick Nairn talk about food in Scotland and submit your views online. Further video blogs will be added to the website throughout the food discussion.
CRC: The Commission for Rural Communities (CRC) has announced that the BERR Committee has taken up the CRC’s recommendation concerning the threat to the survival of village shops where these are attached to a post office, by recommending that ‘there should be a presumption against closing a post office where this is the last shop in the village’.
