NHS patients are to be able to report unexpected effects of drugs directly to the medicines watchdog using a series of methods, including the Internet. The Medicines Healthcare and products Regulatory Agency is planning to pilot different systems of patient reporting, which will also include forms available in GPs surgeries.The proposal is one of a series of recommendations which have been made by experts following a review of the Yellow Card scheme, which has been in use for 40 years. The other recommendations will be put out for consultation but the idea of direct patient reporting is to be rolled out immediately.

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Legal constraints on local government publicity need to be reformed according to the author of a new guide to the rules. Alan Pickstock, writer of “The Right Side of the Law” – produced by the Local Government Information Unit – also questions whether the present “suffocating climate” helps the campaign to combat apathy among voters.The latest edition, the first since September 2001, is seen as the authoritative guide to the legal constraints on local authority publicity. It aims to ensure councils can mount effective public relations campaigns to help in achieving objectives while staying within the law. It offers council staff who communicate with the public an awareness of the rules on local authority publicity.

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The Indices are measures of deprivation and they combine indicators for income, employment, heath deprivation and disability, education, skills and training deprivation, barriers to housing and services, living environment deprivation and crime, into a single deprivation score. The revised indices have data on crime and the living environment for the first time and they also map deprivation in greater detail. Data is now based on 32,000 Super Output Areas rather than 8,400 wards. The new areas cover between 1000 and 3000 people. This provides a more in-depth appreciation of variations in deprivation at a more local level. Information is also available at the local authority district level and county council level.The results show that at area level England’s most deprived 20% of SOAs have just under a third of income deprived people, one in five of women aged 18-59 and men aged 18-64 are employment deprived, just under half of children live in families that are income deprived and about a third of older people are income deprived.

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