Social care “Widespread decline” in what people receive From 2015-16 to 2019-20 some 120 000 more people requested social care support but around 14 000 fewer received either long or short term support, an annual assessment by the King’s Fund think tank showed.1 An estimated £1.9bn (€2.2bn;$2.7bn) extra is needed simply to meet demand for adult social care by 2023-24, and funding is also needed to satisfy unmet demand, improve quality of services, and cover the additional costs of covid-19, it found. NHS Raise taxes to improve health and care, says LSE Spending on the NHS and social care in the UK needs to increase by £102bn (€119bn;$144bn) over the next decade, said a commission from the London School of Economics and the Lancet.3 The funding boost would come from 1p rises on personal income tax, VAT, and national insurance by 2025-26 and raising personal income tax and national insurance by a further 2p by 2030-31, which the commission says the public supports. Missing data Regulators are urged to take action over trials Transparency campaigners wrote an open letter to national medicine regulators around Europe, urging them to reduce the high number of unreported clinical trials.
Seven days in medicine: 5-11 May 2021