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Government considers plastic bottle tax
The Government is considering bringing in additional charges for buying plastic bottles in a bid to tackle the quantity of waste taking up space in landfill sites and polluting the sea. Customers buying liquids in plastic containers would have to pay an extra 10p or 20p for each bottle they buy, which would be refundable upon returning the bottle.
The deposit return scheme has already been trialled in Scotland, and similar schemes already exist in Europe, Canada and the US. Ministers are now understood to be looking at the Scottish trials in detail as part of a new strategy to tackle litter in Britain.
Responding to a question from Conservative MP Steve Double on addressing litter on beaches, Environment minister Therese Coffey said: “The consultation is out there on micro-beads but there is in that a call for wider evidence about the need to tackle other plastics. “We are developing a new litter strategy which may well address this issue."
Man evicted after blocking hospital bed for two years
A man has been evicted from his hospital bed by court order after he "unnecessarily" refused to leave for more than two years. The patient arrived at the James Paget University Hospital in Norfolk in August 2014 and remained there until this year despite being deemed "fit for discharge", according to the BBC.
The hospital in Gorleston, near Great Yarmouth, said it launched legal action against the man, who has not been named due to patient confidentiality, as a last resort. A court of possession granted the order on 1 December and he was removed on 10 January and placed in accommodation in the community.
Anna Hills, the hospital's director of governance, told the BBC: "The gentleman repeatedly refused all offers of appropriate accommodation organised by our local authority and social care partners, despite being fit for discharge. As a last resort, the trust had to apply to the court to allow us to remove the gentleman from the hospital."
MRI boost for Prostate cancer testing
Suspected prostate cancer sufferers should undergo an initial MRI scan to improve detection of aggressive forms of the disease and reduce the number of men undergoing unnecessary biopsies, a study has found. The report, published in British medical journal The Lancet, estimates an MRI could help 27 per cent of men avoid an unwarranted biopsy, during which a small sample of tissue is removed from the body for examination.
More than 570 men with suspected prostate cancer were given an MRI scan followed by two types of biopsy as part of the study. Researchers found the MRI scan correctly identified 93 per cent of aggressive cancers, while most commonly used biopsy type only diagnosed about half.
Lead author Dr Hashim Ahmed, of the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH), said the current biopsy test could be inaccurate because tissue samples were selected at random. He said: "This means it cannot confirm whether a cancer is aggressive or not and can miss aggressive cancers that are actually there."
British man dies working on Qatar stadium
A British man has died while working on a stadium for the 2022 World Cup, organisers said. They said the unnamed 40-year-old man died on Thursday during construction of the Khalifa International Stadium, which is due to stage games up to the quarter-final stage of the football tournament in 2022.
A statement from Qatar said: "The relevant authorities have been notified and the next of kin has been informed. An immediate investigation into the cause of this fatality is under way and further details will be released in due course."