Cherie Blair is likely to front a legal action by care homes to get councils around the country to pay more for elderly care. The wife of the former Prime Minister has provided advice for a coalition of private care home firms, charities and housing associations who run residential and nursing care accommodation across England.

A social services manager from North Yorkshire has been suspended for writing a reference that helped a perverted youth worker land a job with Cumbrian teenagers.

Police investigating the alleged abuse of children at a nursery have re-arrested two people. Detectives launched an inquiry after three children suffered “unexplained” broken bones at the Rocking Horse Nursery in Plumtree, near Nottingham.

Victims of alleged child abuse in Jersey said today they had been vindicated after a former carer was jailed for two years for a string of sex attacks. Gordon Wateridge, 78, nicknamed “the perv” by his victims, repeatedly sexually assaulted three teenagers at the Haut de la Garenne children’s home during the 1970s.

A SOCIAL worker has been struck off after a committee accepted allegations of misconduct involving two young girls in the 1980s. Douglas Makey, 49, who worked for Kent County Council, was banned from being a social worker after a three-day hearing of the General Social Care Council (GSCC).

A FORMER senior social worker is alleged to have sexually assaulted a girl at a children’s home in Gravesend, a misconduct hearing has heard.

A new national learning network on sustainable social care has been launched as a means of strengthening the sector. It has been established by the Local Government Information Unit and is sponsored by the Social Care Institute for Excellence and the Department of Health.

The brother of a man with schizophrenia who died in a squalid Clapham flat criticised the care workers who feared moving him would violate his human rights.

There has been an 11 per cent increase in the number of children subject to child protection plans in the past year, latest government statistics show.

Social workers are facing burnout due to their heavy workloads and the extreme pressure they are under, says UNISON, the UK’s leading public sector trade union. The union has reiterated its call for more social workers, and for changes to their working lives, following figures released about their sickness absence. The sickness rates, say the union, highlight the intolerable pressure being put on social workers.