Smart motorways were first introduced in the UK in 2006, but there are concerns that they may not be safe for motorists, emergency services and road maintenance workers.

Hundreds of people living in the UK have been invited to take part in a pioneering clinical trial for Motor Neurone Disease (MND).

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People who live with the illness, which progressively prevents signals from the brain reaching muscles, will be allowed to undergo several treatments at once. This makes it one of the most widespread clinical trials in a generation.

The initiative, MIND-SMART, aims to find treatments that can slow, stop or reverse MND and is looking for clinical trial volunteers.

What is MND?

According to the MND Association, MND can:
• cause muscles to weaken and stiffen
• affect how you walk, talk, breathe and eat
• change the way people think or behave.

There is a 1 in 300 risk of getting MND and there is currently no cure. That is why this clinical trial is being hailed as ground-breaking.

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How will the trial work?

Due to this trial being a multi-arm trial, participants will take more than one treatment at the same time. They will be compared to a single group that will be given a placebo. This means that, unlike usual trials where only one drug is tested, more participants will receive an active treatment.

The trial will also be adaptive, meaning drugs can be changed once researchers start to see emerging results. Treatments that are not working can be dropped and others can be added.

Medicines that have already been endorsed as treatments for other diseases will primarily be used in the first stage of the trials. This is likely to reduce adverse effects in trial participants. Lengthy authorisation processes can be shortened by repurposing drugs in this way, resulting in medicines being widely available much more quickly.

How can I be a clinical trial volunteer?
The trial has been designed to be open to as many people with MND as possible. Also, to help participants, the drugs that are to be taken are in liquid form, making them much easier to swallow. Video calling is being introduced for some appointments, reducing the number of times people will have to travel to the clinic.

Finally, to avoid confusion or ambiguity, all trial materials have been written so that everyone can understand what is happening.

The first participants will begin the trial in Edinburgh and then it will be rolled out UK-wide during 2020.

In a new ruling, landlords will have to put smoke and carbon monoxide alarms in any properties that they rent out. Fire and rescue authorities in England have been given grant funding by the government to help the landlords in their areas by providing them free alarms.

Marketing is all about communication, and that means not only transmitting a message, but also that your intended audience both receives it and understands it as you intended. In today’s crowded marketplace, we are bombarded every day with marketing messages that appeal to our eyes – in print and on our screens – our ears (on television and radio) and for some products, our taste buds, and now clever marketing teams are starting to target our sense of smell.

Flexibility has advantages in many walks of life, and this is also true when it comes to clinical trials. The ability to be able to apply a flexible approach and adapt the design of trials accordingly can offer many benefits. Here, we take a brief look at the advantages of such adaptive clinical trials.

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We all have a favourite time of the year. Most people seem to find the Spring and the Summer their’ s as everything starts to come back to life or has erupted into the full bloom of the middle of the year. For others it is the melancholier months of Autumn or even the harsh darkness of winter. Your sense of smell is also very important. Whilst we may associate, and identify more, with the colour of the months the smells that occur can reveal more in you. It is as if the smell and the scents of the season can awaken in the brain a time from the past. Those people who work outdoors such as a Poole Tree Surgeon or an Exeter gardener will be used to the different smells of the seasons, but those who work in offices for most of their time, find some of the seasonal smells new and intriguing.

A recent survey has found that many students in the UK have to endure shocking housing conditions that could affect their health and safety.

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Accommodation problem

One study has concluded that student accommodation is largely unsafe and overpriced in the UK, with 90% of students having experienced a problem with their dwelling.

According to The Guardian, more than a third of students also think they’ve been treated unfairly by a landlord.

It is important that if you are looking to purchase accommodation to let out to students that you use a reputable Gloucester Estate Agents that will help you to find the right property, in the best condition and that is suitable for use as a student let.

Issues

It’s not just private rented accommodation that students are having problems with, but issues are also commonly cropping up in halls of residence and other university-owned properties.

There are a wide variety of issues that students have grievances with, and while the top concern is noisy housemates, the majority of problems focus on maintenance areas.

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Many students complain that they’re not living in safe accommodation, without even having basic services. Some students report having broken or damaged facilities, lack of heating and water, dangerous or unsafe conditions in the house and limited security that could leave them prone to getting burgled. Increasingly, many students complain about having to live in accommodation infested with bugs, rodents and pests.

Duty of care

Landlords have a duty of care to their tenants, and as well as ensuring a property is safe and maintained, it should come with the appropriate facilities. However, the reality is currently somewhat different. Many students aren’t getting the appropriate assistance they need from their landlords. One survey found that 20% of students had to wait over a month to get issues with their property resolved, while 4% of students claimed their problems never got fixed.

With the cost of accommodation taking an enormous bite out of a student budget, it’s no wonder that many students are struggling to cope in dire conditions. Half of all students face problems paying the rent, so it’s not hard to see how many students end up suffering from mental health problems as a result of this.

The good news is that the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 recently came into force, which means landlords have a legal obligation to maintain their properties. Failure to comply with the new rules means that students have the right to take legal action against landlords who shirk their responsibilities.

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