The Health News United Kingdom August 3 2017

Overview

• The official data shows the number of drug poisoning deaths reached record levels in England and Wales. Deaths involving cocaine rose by 16% to 371, while overall there were 3,743 deaths from legal and illegal drugs.
• Scientists have discovered that women who have children after the age of 30 face a greater risk of their offspring developing cancer. Experts warn that women who leave it late to have children are at a much greater risk of severe complications.
• Research suggests that up to 3,000 elderly people will not be able to get beds in UK care homes by the end of next year. Increasing demand from an ageing population could see that grow to more than 7,000 beds in 9 years’ time.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 3rd of August 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health New

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40800288

The number of drug poisoning deaths reached record levels in England and Wales last year, official data shows. Deaths involving cocaine rose by sixteen percent to three hundred seventy one, while overall there were three thousand seven hundred forty four deaths from legal and illegal drugs. The Office for National Statistics or ONS said it was the highest number of deaths since comparable records began in nineteen ninety three. The ONS data showed that those in their forties have overtaken people in their thirties as being the age group with the highest mortality rate from drug misuse. Of the deaths, more than two-thirds were due to misuse of drugs, and two-thirds of the deaths were men – in line with previous years. The majority of fatalities linked to cocaine use occurred in men aged thirty to forty nine, the figures show.

Within England, the North East had the highest mortality rate from drug misuse in two thousand sixteen for the fourth year running (seventy seven point four deaths per million), while the East Midlands had the lowest (twenty nine point one deaths per million). The mortality rate from drug misuse in Wales rose from fifty eight point three deaths per million population in two thousand fifteen to sixty six point nine in two thousand and sixteen. Deaths in England have remained comparable between two thousand fifteen and two thousand sixteen.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4750588/Older-parents-higher-risk-children-having-cancer.html

Scientist have discovered that women who have children after the age of thirty face a greater risk of their offspring developing cancer. Those who were over thirty five were more likely to have infants linked to an increased risk of leukaemia diagnoses – especially acute lymphoblastic leukemia – as well as non-Hodgkin lymphoma. For those between the age of thirty and thirty four, a link was found for Hodgkin lymphoma. The association may be due to an increase in chromosomal mutations in older people, say the researchers. The findings are worrying given that the age at which couples are having babies has been rising in recent years.

‘We knew that parental age was a risk factor for childhood cancer,’ study author Julia Heck, associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health told Cure. She also said that in most cases, older parents confer greater risk, but in some instances very young or teenage parents may also have offspring with higher cancer rates. We wanted to explore this relationship in our population-based study.

Past research shows that the number of women aged over forty having babies has now overtaken those under twenty for the first time in almost seventy years. The fertility rate among older women has more than trebled since the early eighties. Experts put the trend down to increasing numbers of women focusing on their careers and the spiralling cost of having children.

Women who leave it late to have children are at a much greater risk of severe complications, experts warn. Those who become mothers over forty four were more than twice as likely to die or suffer a serious condition than those who gave birth in their twenties, a study found.

They were also more than ten times as likely to end up in intensive care than those who have a child in their early twenties.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40791919

Up to three thousand elderly people will not be able to get beds in UK care homes by the end of next year, research suggests. Research commissioned by BBC Radio Four’s You and Yours programme reveals a huge shortfall in the number of beds available. Increasing demand from an ageing population could see that grow to more than seventy thousand beds in nine years’ time.The Department of Health said local authorities in England had been given an extra two billion pounds to help fund social care. But in the past three years one in twenty UK care home beds has closed, and research suggests not enough are being added to fill the gap.

The research, carried out by property consultants JLL, found that since two thousand two an average of seven thousand new care home beds had opened in the UK every year, but by two thousand twenty six  there would be an additional  fourteen thousand people needing residential care home places per year. Lead researcher James Kingdom said: “We’re currently building half the number of care home beds every year that we need.”

Barchester Healthcare is the third largest care home provider in the UK. It is concerned the gap in capacity means extremely vulnerable people are not getting the care they need.

In the past three years, twenty one thousand five hundred care beds have closed in the UK.

People in the care industry worry that as bed capacity decreases and demand increases, there will be more pressure on NHS beds as elderly people are admitted to hospital because they can’t cope at home.