A survey of social services directors suggests that adult social care is to see around £1 billion of cuts this year.

WORRIED relatives fear for the safety of their loved ones if staff levels are cut at a Basingstoke nursing home. Hampshire County Council has announced plans to shed 12.6 full-time equivalent jobs from Oakridge Nursing Home, in Jefferson Road, Oakridge – more than 20 per cent of the workforce.

Leeds Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust is working to take on adult social care provision for the city. February board minutes say staff and service users have been involved in developing the plans.

Childminders must be helped to engage with other professionals to tackle changes in policy and funding challenges, according to the next chair of the National Childminding Association (NCMA).

Inadequate food, unclean and unsafe environments, understimulated and inactive residents and one case of possible abuse. These are some of the things Which? discovered in its investigation of care homes, where we asked three actors to spend a week of their lives in four randomly chosen residential and nursing homes.

Proposals to split Ofsted into two separate inspectorates of education and children’s care would make the government’s policies on children with special educational needs, early years services and looked-after children unviable, sector leaders have warned.

A whistleblower at Wirral Borough Council has been offered his job back after a long running campaign by local paper, the Wirral Globe.

More children are being taken into care across the West Midlands, according to latest figures. Between 2008 and 2010 many councils saw rises of between 10 and 20%.

CHILD protection cases on Teesside have more than doubled over the past five years, and social workers warn they are struggling to cope.

Discrimination warning as coalition cuts prompt local authorities to set bar higher for eldery and disabled to receive care