December Diary

15 December
• AGM of the all-party parliamentary group on cancer
• British Neuroscience Association Christmas Symposium ‘Windows on the Brain: Getting closer to the action’, on how the latest microscopical techniques reveal neural events, The Royal Society, London
• Community Care awards, London

December 21
• The Tobacco Advertising & Promotion (Point of Sale) Regulations 2004 come into force. Point of Sale in stores is restricted to A5 ads on gantries of which 30 per cent must be a health warning

December 31
• Responsibility for overseeing GPs working at evenings & night transfers to primary care organisations, with about half of doctors, according to BMA, willing to continue doing some shift work

January 1
• National Hangover Day
• The Treasury requires all universities, research councils & governmental departments that commission research - bar the NHS - to calculate & charge the full economic cost of the research they do. By September, failure to do so will risk the forfeiting of lucrative research council grants.

January 2
• Arthritis Research Campaign education week

January 3
• The Department of Health publishes its monthly CJD statistics

January 12
• Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland winter scientific meeting, London
• British Psychological Society annual occupational psychology conference, Kenilworth
• Former Treasury adviser Ed Balls delivers the Daycare Trust annual childcare lecture

January 18
• Kings Fund/Evening Standard NHS Champions Awards

January 23
• Farmhouse Breakfast Week
• World Leprosy Week

January 24
• Food Intolerance Week
• Macmillan Cancer Relief holds CancerTalk campaign week on the impact of living with cancer. Children’s writers Anne Fine & Jacqueline Wilson head the campaign

January 26
• National Salt Awareness Day

January 31
• Beating Bowel Cancer “Loud Tie Campaign”, inviting people to wear loud ties and raise funds to tackle the disease
• Bug Busting Day, triannual headlice campaign

February 1
• Raynauds Scleroderma awareness month

February 3
• International Society of Radiographers and Radiological Technicians world congress, Hong Kong
• Royal College of General Practitioners physical and learning disabilities conference, London.  Speakers are set to include health minister Dr Stephen Ladyman

February 5
• British Association of Psychotherapists AGM, Westminster

February 6
• Eating Disorders Association awareness week

February 7
• The Department of Health publishes its monthly CJD statistics
• Kiss 4 Life Week (till 14/2)

February 8
• Centre for Health Information Quality annual conference, Westminster

February 9
• Annual children’s nurseries conference, London

February 10
• Unison women’s conference, Plymouth

February 11
• Annual world day of the sick

February 12
• The Institute of Ideas hosts a conference entitled, “Health: An unhealthy obsession?”

February 14
• Edinburgh international science week
• Family Planning Association contraception awareness week
• National impotence Day
• Variety Club gold heart day

February 15
• International Childhood Cancer Day

February 28
• Macmillan Cancer Relief hosts The Big Hush – asking school classes & groups to take part in a few minutes silence & help raise money for people with cancer
• Repetitive Strain Injury awareness day
• World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
• Marie Curie Cancer Care annual daffodil campaign is launched
• National Association of Primary Care annual conference
• Sleep Council National Bed Month

March 2
• Royal College of Psychiatrists Faculty of Old Age Psychiatry annual meeting, Amsterdam

March 3
• FOREST annual awards announced online