Mental health sector gives mixed response to £1.3bn plan for better services

The Government has unveiled plans to increase the number of mental health professionals working within the NHS creating 21,000 new positions including trained nurses, therapists, psychiatrists, peer support workers plus other mental health professionals. The scheme will cost £1.3 billion and aims to treat an additional one million people suffering from mental health issues. Mental Health campaigners, such as the charity Mind, have welcomed the new proposals stating it would bring reform to a historically underfunded sector of the NHS.

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/31/me...

 

Coca cola dishes out verbal pun-ishment in quirky animated love story encouraging recycling

Coca Cola have launched a new campaign encouraging consumers to recycle their bottles after use. The quirky ad uses stop motion technology and tells a love story between two plastic bottles who keep meeting again and again because of recycling. The soft drinks company has been dubbed as one of the world's most valuable brands. Its products are sold in over 200 countries worldwide and 1.8 billion products are consumed per day. Coca Cola plans to increase the amount of recycled plastic used in its bottles from 25% to 50% by 2020.

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http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/coke-dishes-...

 

Facebook 'dark ads' can swing political opinions, research shows

The Guardian has written an article on the use of 'dark ads' on social media. The use of Dark ads, a politically motivated advert tailored to a specific personality type, are raising concerns because they are targeting voters concerns and manipulating them to appeal to their bias. Research conducted by the Online Privacy Foundation revealed that psychographic targeting can have a real impact on election results with targeted ads shifting opinions effectively. Platforms such as Facebook are favoured by companies as an advertising tool as it enables businesses to target market consumers in accordance to their desired demographic, but the ethical issue of our personal interests and opinions being used to manipulate our way of thinking still remains.

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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/31...

 

Swapping cars for bikes, not diesel for electric, is the best route to clean air

As covered in our news segment last week, the government have released a plan to tackle air pollution by switching all cars in the UK to electric by the year 2040. The proposal has faced criticism as it doesn’t address short term measures which could be taken to address air quality and has been dubbed a missed opportunity to improve congestion in our cities, which currently costs the UK economy £11 billion per year. It has been suggested that UK cities should follow the lead of places such as Amsterdam and Copenhagen, to increase the number of bicycles in the streets and reduce the use of cars. Not only would this be of benefit to the country's air pollution, but also improve the health and wellbeing of the public.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/...