This briefing provides an overview of key issues facing the adult social care sector during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, and provides links to some of the key official guidance for the sector.

What is the picture of poverty at the start of 2022, coming up to two years after a global pandemic struck? To an extent the picture is unclear: we don’t yet have official poverty data covering the pandemic period, and we know that the quality of the very surveys we rely on for this information were affected by the onset of the pandemic.

This briefing paper considers suicide prevention policies and strategies throughout the UK. It outlines national and local approaches to prevention policy in some key policy areas.

A report of the APPG for ‘left behind’. The All-Party Parliamentary Group for ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods is a cross party group of MPs and Peers. It was formed to increase opportunities and improve the quality of life for people living in areas which face a mixture of economic deprivation and insufficient social infrastructure – the connections, organisations and spaces to meet that enable communities to make positive changes for themselves.

How ageing affects health and care need in England

The National Health Service Act 1946, which set up the NHS in England and Wales, contained a provision that NHS services should be provided free of charge unless that Act expressly provided for a charge. This provision has been carried forward into the legislation which replaced the 1946 Act – the NHS Act 1977, and subsequently the NHS Act 2006.