Press release: Dallyn’s Dairy stream ‘thick with cattle dung’ near Barnstaple

A ‘slurry umbilical pipe’ and other clues hinted at serious, persistent pollution taking place.

The owners of a dairy farm have been ordered to pay £14,252 in fines and costs for polluting a stream with effluent. The case was brought by the Environment Agency.

The agency received a report of pollution in the Colam Stream near Muddiford, Barnstaple on 24 May 2016. The pollution was traced to nearby Collacott Farm where Richard Dallyn, director of Dallyn’s Dairy Ltd, admitted there had been spillages the previous day.

Effluent from a dirty water lagoon had been pumped into a field channel instead of being dispersed on the land by sprayer. Described as ‘thick with cattle dung,’ the dirty water was then allowed to flow downhill and into the stream.

Officers also saw a slurry umbilical pipe across the stream. There were signs a ‘significant discharge’ of effluent had occurred. Slurry was visible on the riverbank, rocks and surrounding bushes suggesting a coupling on the pipe had failed. There was also heavy algal growth and sewage fungus in the stream that indicated a source of long term pollution was present.

Further checks revealed pollution was also coming from one of a series of settlement ponds on the farm that had overflowed and was sending poor quality water into the Colam Stream. As a precaution, the Environment Agency alerted the owners of two fish farms downstream of Collacott Farm.

A clean river capable of supporting trout and salmon would be expected to have an ammonia reading of approximately 0.25mg/litre. The ammonia level downstream of the illegal discharge was 20.2mg/litre.

More than 600 metres of the stream was affected by a ‘chronic and continuing’ pollution. In places the watercourse was ‘running grey’ with large amount of silt and residue. Large colonies of ‘blood worms’, an indicator of poor water quality, also were present.

A court heard there had been a history of pollution incidents at Collacott Farm involving silage, slurry and dirty water run-off that had resulted in warning letters and a caution from the Environment Agency.

Sean McKay for the Environment Agency said: “The Environment Agency works closely with farmers to ensure that they understand their responsibilities towards the environment and that they comply with the relevant regulations.

“It will not hesitate to take action against farmers who take risks and fail to put appropriate pollution prevention measures in place.”

Dallyn’s Dairy Ltd was fined £6,666 and ordered to pay £7,416 costs by Barnstaple magistrates after pleading guilty to polluting the Colam Stream, an offence under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations. The company was also ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £170. The case was heard on January 30, 2018.



Press release: Strong UK-China collaborations in healthcare

It has been a momentous month for healthcare agreements between the UK and China, with the announcement of numerous collaborations by UK companies in healthcare and life sciences with their Chinese partners.

Over £500 million of healthcare and life science deals were signed in the visit by the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for International Trade.

The deals signify the closer working between the UK and China to develop faster, safer and more effective diagnostics, therapeutics and healthcare services.

Future of Medicine signings

The Secretary of State witnessed UK-China deal signings at the Future of Medicine event in Beijing, China. The event celebrated the future of medicine through stronger relationships between our 2 countries in personalised medicine, artificial intelligence and digital health.

In a speech delivered to leading Chinese healthcare companies, the Secretary of State said:

Advances in medicine and technology are opening up new opportunities to manage and cure disease. Today accelerated access programs bring novel therapies to patients faster than ever before.

New technologies and advancements cannot be developed in isolation though. To successfully help a population they need to be integrated into the infrastructure of a country’s healthcare system. This is an exciting challenge facing both the UK and China, tackled through greater collaboration during this golden era.

Other recent signings

Other signings witnessed by the Prime Minister and Secretary of State include deals between China’s Food and Drug Administration and the UK Medicine and Health Products Regulatory Authority, and TPP and First Chengmei Medical add weight to the increasingly strong relationship between UK-China healthcare companies.

Sharing the stage with the former NHFPC Vice Minister Jin Xiaotao, the Secretary of State said:

The UK has a population of approximately 65 million, the size of one Chinese province. With a population of 1.4 billion the data that can be generated through health care collaborations in China has a huge global worth.

List of Signings

The full list of the healthcare and life sciences deal signings, in conjunction with the Prime Minister’s and Secretary of State’s visit are:

  • Trinity College Cambridge and Tus-Holdings: Tus-Holdings signed an agreement to invest over 200 million into the Cambridge Science Park
  • AstraZeneca China and Shenzhen Tencent Computer Systems signed an agreement to work together to tackle counterfeit drugs on the e-commerce platform
  • The University of Manchester and Peking University Health Science Center signed an agreement to cooperate in the areas of Biology, Medicine and Health and to extend collaboration on a new Joint Technological Platform for biomarker discovery
  • Medopad and Peking University Smart Health Lab signed an agreement to work together to configure new care models and patient monitoring solutions
  • Medopad and China Resources Guokang (Shanghai) Pharmaceutical Co. signed a contract to transform how patients with chronic and high cost diseases are cared for
  • Congenica and Digital China Health signed a MOU on genomic data analytics research and development to implement a medical big data strategy in China
  • Beijing UniteGen Co. Ltd signed an agreement to expand the existing commercial deal with Congenica to provide genomic diagnosis solutions for Chinese rare disease patients
  • Nine Health Global and Tsingdata D-LAB signed an agreement to collaborate in the development of bid data health analytics
  • Eight Great Technologies and Leaguer International Co signed an agreement to create a 5 billion RMB fund to invest in UK emerging technologies
  • TPP and First Chengmai Medical Industry Group have signed an agreement to work together to deliver an integrated healthcare platform for electronic records
  • China’s Food and Drug Administration and the UK Medicine and Health Products Regulatory Authority agreed to exchange safety information on medicines and medical devices to protect patients in the UK, China, and around the world

More information on China healthcare opportunities

Contact us at Healthcare UK to discuss how we can help you, whether you are a UK-based supplier or an international buyer.



Press release: Justice Secretary publishes action plan for HMP Nottingham

  • immediate improvements made after ministers and inspectors demand action
  • prison improves mental health services, boosts anti-violence measures and repairs the estate
  • Justice Secretary makes clear there is more to be done, and will use this process to get the basics right at Nottingham and across the prison estate

Building on improvements made at the prison last year, care for the most vulnerable offenders will be dramatically improved, with NHS England supporting HMP Nottingham with an additional £200,000 to improve mental health services.

Specialist healthcare staff will now spend additional time with those most at risk of self-harm, and more detailed mental health assessments will be completed by trained professionals.

A local suicide prevention policy has also been launched, providing additional staff training in managing vulnerable offenders, and the prison will continue to work closely with the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman to make sure all recommendations on deaths in custody are implemented.

Justice Secretary David Gauke said:

I’ve been absolutely clear that conditions in some of our prisons are unacceptable, and I will not stand for them.

We’ve already taken immediate action to address failings identified by the Chief Inspector, but this action plan is only the beginning.

The most troubling and tragic of the problems at HMP Nottingham is the unacceptable level of self-harm and deaths. To address this, we have established a new suicide prevention policy, boosted the mental health assessment and referrals process, and got extra support from the NHS.

But we can’t stop there and I am committed to getting the basics right at Nottingham and across the estate. We must stop the drugs, violence and self-harm, and clean up our prisons so we can focus on making them safe and secure places for rehabilitation.

The plan also sets out how HMP Nottingham has:

  • carried out a full review of safety and violence, with body worn cameras now fully operational and staff receiving additional conflict resolution training
  • committed to recruiting 100 new officers to boost the prison’s frontline, as well as increasing mentoring for new recruits and less experienced staff
  • completed over 800 maintenance tasks, including repairing windows and damaged cells, with monthly inspections resulting in significant improvements to cleanliness

This action plan comes after ministers introduced the Urgent Notification process last year, meaning prisons that require urgent attention will have 28 days to introduce tough measures that will drive improvement. Last month, HMP Nottingham was issued with the first ever Urgent Notification by the Chief Inspector of Prisons.

Since then, the prison has taken wide-ranging action to address the concerns of the Chief Inspector, building on improvements already made prior to the Urgent Notification being issued.

Today’s action plan comes in advance of the final inspection report into HMP Nottingham, which is due to be published later this year.

Notes to editors

  • The Urgent Notification for HMP Nottingham was issued on 19 January, and was the first such notification issued to any prison in England and Wales.
  • The Secretary of State has 28 days to publicly report on action taken to resolve issues raised by inspectors.
  • More information on Urgent Notification can be found on GOV.UK.
  • For more info, please call the MOJ Press Office on 0203 334 3536.

Justice Secretary’s response and plan of action



Official Statistics: Forestry Commission England: Headline Performance Indicators Update 31 December 2017

The document will present Forestry Commission England’s six headline indicators: number of high priority forest pests in the UK Plant Health Risk Register, percentage of known tree felling that is carried out with Forestry Commmission approval, percentage of woodland in active management, area of woodland, cost of managing the Public Forest Estate and number of private sector businesses operating on the Public Forest Estate.



News story: Dstl experts decode the science behind falling in love

Love is a well-studied, but little understood phenomena. Evolutionary psychology suggests that love is a way for us to attract and retain a mate enabling the reproduction and caring of offspring, but that doesn’t explain how we fall in love or what it looks like.

Psychologist and neuroscientists alike have attempted to quantify the reasons behind how we fall and stay in love; while there are many different psychological and neurological theories, love triads seem to be a common theme.

The filter theory (Kerckhoff and Davis, 1962) proposes that when we are looking to identify a suitable partner we filter down the population of potential mates based on three criteria.

Firstly, we consider social demographics; we are more likely to select a partner who has a similar background, this could be geographical closeness, closeness in social class, ethnicity or education level. When we have filtered appropriate individuals we next refine our pool based on similarity in attitudes. Finally, we apply a filter to identify complimentary characteristics, we don’t necessarily want someone who is just like us, but someone whose traits compliment ours (e.g. a creative person might come up with holiday ideas whilst their partner may be good at organising to help plan the trip).

A triangular theory of love (Sternberg, 1986) proposes that love can be understood in terms of three components; intimacy (e.g. feelings of closeness and forming bonds), passion (e.g. physical attraction and excitement) and decision/commitment (in the short-term we decide to love a partner and in the long term the commitment to maintain that love). Whilst the three components common to loving relationships, each may present differently from one relationship to another, or over time within a given relationship resulting in unique relationships.

Neuroscientists would also claim that love can be broken down into three aspects. When an individual falls in love there is an increase in the activity of brain regions that contains high concentration of dopamine which is associated with reward, desire, addition and euphoric states. Conversely, there is a decrease in activity of the amygdala, normally this is engaged during fearful situations this decrease implies a lessening of fear. Concurrently there is a decrease in frontal cortex activity resulting in a relaxed judgement.

Dstl has a wide variety of jobs for scientists, including our neuroscientists, who work on solutions for Defence and Security and for keeping people safe in the UK and abroad. If you are interested in working for Dstl look out for roles here – we are sure that you would love to work with us!