People in England will receive more healthcare treatments online, enabling them to check NHS records, receive messages from their GP and attend virtual wards, under government plans to digitise healthcare.

Ministers hope that the expansion of technology will free up hospital beds and clinician time by enabling doctors and nurses to monitor about 500,000 people remotely.

The plan for digital health and social care, published on Wednesday, also sets out how patients will be able to manage hospital appointments, book Covid vaccines and have virtual consultations through the NHS app, which 28 million people now have, by March 2023.

The health secretary, Sajid Javid, said: “We are embarking on a radical programme of modernisation that will make sure the NHS is set up to meet the challenges of 2048 – not 1948, when it was first established.

The UK’s Royal Mail wants to set up as many as 50 drone routes over the next three years to make deliveries to remote communities. The plan, which requires approval from the Civil Aviation Authority, would see the service secure up to 200 of the autonomous devices from logistics drone company Windracers.

The Royal Mail said the first communities to benefit would be the Isles of Scilly (off the coast of Cornwall in south-west England) and the Scottish islands of Shetland, Orkney and the Hebrides.

Test flights started last year. In the most recent one, held in April, the service was able to use a UAV to deliver mail to Unst, Britain’s most northerly inhabited island, from Tingwall Airport on Shetland’s largest island. That’s a 50-mile flight each way.

The twin-engine drone used in the tests can carry a payload of up to 100 kg of mail and take two return flights each day. The Royal Mail said the device has a wingspan of 10 meters and can withstand difficult weather conditions with the help of its autopilot system. After the drone arrives at its destination, a postal worker will retrieve the mail and parcels and deliver them.

The Royal Mail claimed the drones would help it reduce carbon emissions and provide a more reliable delivery service to islands. It eventually hopes to have a fleet of more than 500 drones that will operate across the UK.

A police force has unveiled a special drone it says will be a “gamechanger” in efforts to tackle rural crime.

Avon and Somerset Police said the drone had already helped recover £100,000 worth of stolen equipment in a single operation.

It hopes the technology will stop hare coursing and poaching and lead to more prosecutions.

One Somerset farmer said it would stop theft on his farm “if it can be deployed quickly”.

The drone uses a controller that has a live feed from its cameras, and can be quietly flown at a speed of 25 knots (28 mph).

It can be used to survey large areas of land to find missing people and criminals quickly.

Avon and Somerset’s rural and wildlife affairs unit drone pilot Pete Wills said: “It is a gamechanger.

“Hare coursing, especially, and poaching are underreported and also prosecutions are really difficult to get because there isn’t CCTV out here.”

Somerset farmer Richard Payne said the drone could help stop vandalism and the theft of his machinery worth thousands of pounds.

“My farm has become a soft target for crime,” he said.

“There are professional gangs that will go around taking valuable bits of kit out of machinery – if they don’t take the whole machine themselves.”

The government has launched a £4m fund to back projects trialling running fibre optic broadband cables through water pipes to help connect hard-to-reach homes without digging up roads.

The money will also be used to test out monitors in pipes that can help water companies identify and repair leaks more quickly. About a fifth of water put into public supply every day is lost via leaks and it is hoped that sensors could help deliver water companies’ commitment to reduce water loss by half.

Infrastruture works, in particular installing new ducts and poles, can make up as much as four-fifths of the costs to industry of building new gigabit-capable broadband networks, the government said.

The project is designed to help cut those costs, and is part of a plan to improve broadband and mobile signals in rural areas.

The digital infrastructure minister, Matt Warman, said: “The cost of digging up roads and land is the biggest obstacle telecoms companies face when connecting hard-to-reach areas to better broadband, but beneath our feet there is a vast network of pipes reaching virtually every building in the country.

“So we are calling on Britain’s brilliant innovators to help us use this infrastructure to serve a dual purpose of serving up not just fresh and clean water but also lightning-fast digital connectivity.”

“Ageist and insulting” was the verdict of one resident when Elmbridge Borough Council in Surrey turned down a 220-home retirement village proposal last autumn.

But elsewhere, new partnerships are being formed between local groups and a new breed of more socially conscious developer set on building communities for older people that support positive ageing and reanimate the towns and neighbourhoods they call home. A confluence of factors means these partnerships are very likely, in the next decade, to draw billions of pounds of baby-boomer and pension fund money into towns and cities.

The first driving factor is growing concern about the future of towns. Council leaders are concerned that the damage to retail from online shopping and Covid is irreversible. Plus no one knows by how much town-centre office space will shrink.

Local politicians understand the vital role of town centres as social hubs and meeting places at the centre of how society functions. So, they are urgently looking to attract investment and find a sustainable future for the burgeoning stock of empty commercial space.

At the same time, major investors are looking for ways to have a greater social impact. For some, such as AXA Real Estate-owned Retirement Villages Group, the idea of investing patient capital or pension fund money to build high-quality housing for older people, while contributing to the post-Covid renewal of towns and cities, is exciting.

Last, but not least, is the demand factor. Baby boomers have more wealth than any previous generation of over-65s, a greater desire to stay connected, and a preference to be closer to town centres and play an active role in communities.

A farm in Lancashire has added a new source of income by allowing the public to book a goat to join in on their lockdown video calls.

Since taking over Cronkshaw Fold Farm from her mother in 2016, Dot McCarthy has diversified the farm into a sustainable business, including educational trips, weddings and accommodation.

But when lockdown made many of these income streams impossible, she adapted her business model from bricks and mortar to ‘bricks and clicks’ – a term for businesses that combine in-person and online services.

“We started virtual activity videos with our local community,” said Dot. One activity involved communicating through mirrors and flashes of sunlight to spell out letters of the alphabet.

“We taught local kids to mirror signal the word PIES – we love pies in Lancashire – and as we’re up on a hill overlooking the valley, we were able to watch all their mirror signals from people’s houses.

Cronkshaw Fold Farm also received unexpected publicity from Dot’s second digital offering: charging £5 to book a goat to join a Zoom call.

“This started as a joke,” she said. “I came up with the idea, told my employee Emma and we agreed it was completely wacky and we should prioritise other money making ideas.

“I put it on the website that evening anyway along with Emma’s email address for bookings. When I woke up, I had loads of missed calls from Emma saying she’d been inundated with emails and couldn’t keep up with the demand for goat calls.”

The success of Dot’s venture has led to newspaper articles, podcast features and an interview on ITV’s This Morning.

“We’ve had everyone from the European management team of Facebook, to NHS staff in need of a cheer up, to virtual church services – the vicars always seem to choose Mary the goat and I am pleased to say we have made over 50k so far,” she said.

When Dot wasn’t busy doing Facebook lives and Goat Zoom calls, she was hard at work bagging up manure to sell to local people growing their own fruit and vegetables.

“We made more than £1000 in just a few delivery runs and our part-time farm school teacher picked up lost work hours doing manure admin instead.”

The government is facing a backlash from local councillors – including more than 350 Conservatives –over its proposals to shake up the planning system.

More than 2,000 councillors from across England and campaigners have signed an open letter to the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, calling on him to rethink the plans.

Ministers want to overhaul the planning system, which they say is necessary to boost the building of high-quality, sustainable homes, by streamlining the process, cutting red tape and harnessing technology.

Proposals include speeding up the creation of local plans by communities and creating zones for growth, renewal or protection, with development in growth areas pre-approved as long as it meets local design standards.

The proposals are also aimed at much quicker development in renewal areas, replace the planning process with a clearer, rules-based system, and protect green spaces by allowing for more building on brownfield land.

But councillors have said the plans will undermine local democracy by removing the public’s right to be heard in person at local plan examinations and taking away development decisions from elected planning committees.

The UK Department for Transport has launched a call for evidence to explore ways of using digital innovation for improving rural transport connectivity in the country.

As part of this, views are being sought by the government on how 21st-century transport from e-bikes to drones can be used for moving people and packages from one place to another more easily.

The call for evidence will help the government to develop its Future of Transport: rural strategy, said the transport department.

UK Transport Minister Rachel Maclean said: “This call for evidence will give us a unique opportunity to harness the community spirit of rural areas to understand how innovation in transport can benefit the people and communities that need it most.

“Now more than ever, it is important that we use the power of transport to build back greener, and transform how people and goods move around the UK.”

According to the Department for Transport, in rural areas, the distance between residences and the nearest mass transport hub is nearly five miles. This makes it a major obstacle for rural residents in accessing public transport and services.

The call for evidence will explore how connecting different digital platforms together could provide a more seamless experience for people. This would include enabling them to plan, book, and also pay for travel all in one place, and to connect journeys over various modes.

It will also study how the growing popularity of e-bikes in addition to digital-mapping technology and apps can encourage more active travel in rural regions.

Also, part of the call for evidence is exploring the scope for using drones for making deliveries in rural or isolated towns and areas.

Furthermore, the Department for Transport will examine the feasibility of fully automated and passenger services operating in rural areas.

A jet suit for paramedics which would see patients reached in minutes by a “flying” medic has been tested by the Great North Air Ambulance Service.

After a year of talks between GNAAS and Gravity Industries, a first test flight was carried out in the Lake District.

Andy Mawson, director of operations at GNAAS, came up with the idea and described seeing it as “awesome”.

He said it meant a paramedic could “fly” to a fell top in 90 seconds rather than taking 30 minutes on foot.

Mr Mawson said: “There are dozens of patients every month within the complex but relatively small geographical footprint of the Lakes.

“We could see the need. What we didn’t know for sure is how this would work in practice. Well we’ve seen it now and it is, quite honestly, awesome.”

Mr Mawson said the exercise had demonstrated the huge potential of using jet suits to deliver critical care services.

Police in rural south-west Wales have used DNA profiling to solve the mystery of a missing cow.

Dyfed-Powys police say they are the first force in the UK to employ a technique more often used in serious crimes such as murder to reunite a heifer with its owner.

The case – described locally as a “moo-dunnit” – centres on a £3,000 animal that went missing from a field in St Clears on the River Taf in Carmarthenshire. Police were called in and suspicion fell on a neighbouring farmer, David Aeron Owens.

The complainant, who has not been named, pointed out to officers the cow he believed was his. PC Gareth Jones was handed what Owens claimed was the cow’s passport – its identification document.

Unsatisfied, police oversaw the taking of blood samples from the disputed animal, which were compared against samples from cows on the complainant’s farm to prove a familial link. The cow in question was returned home and Owens, 51, pleaded guilty to theft at Swansea crown court this week.