The Telegraph says ministers have pledged an end to flying care visits to elderly people, after reports that three-quarters of councils commission visits that have to be done in under 15 minutes, forcing people to choose between being washed and fed.
Health minister Norman Lamb has said such visits must be ‘stamped out’ by the end of the year, the paper says.
Mr Lamb said: ‘This sets a standard for the first time. There will be no excuses from councils trying to justify rushed visits which deprive vulnerable people of human contact, and in some cases leave them forced to choose between help washing or dressing.’
Elsewhere, researchers have found you’re almost certainly more likely to take after your dad than your mum, reports the Independent.
Apparently genes inherited from fathers are more dominant than those inherited from mothers in offspring, according to a study tracing genes in mice.
The paper says this should help provide insight into how diseases and conditions are predetermined by genes, ‘of which several hundred imprinted genes – rather than out of the 95 initially thought – could be in favour of the father’.
Lastly, gout sufferers are less likely to get dementia than people who do not suffer from joint inflammation, according to a study reported in The Times this morning.
According to researchers led by Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston University who looked at a database of UK GP records, the risk of Alzheimer’s disease was reduced by 24% in people with a history of gout.
