Union leaders are stepping up their campaign against compulsory redundancies at Birmingham City Council, accusing the Conservative-led authority of deliberately refusing to put in place strategies to avoid sacking workers.

The most influential mental health charity in the UK has joined urgent calls for counsellors and psychotherapists be independently regulated. Mind says people will be left “unprotected” if counsellors and psychotherapists are not regulated.

The former Cheshire County Council “comprehensively and spectacularly” failed a child in its care who never attended secondary school, according to a local government ombudsman report.

Elderly people will no longer be forced to sell their homes to pay for care under government proposals to be unveiled next week.

Founding member and chief executive of the social care reform organisation has walked out after a boardroom clash.

Scientists have pin-pointed several dozen genes potentially linked to learning disabilities, narrowing the range down from a list of thousands.

A DEAF children’s service which helps Scarborough youngsters has been given £1.4 million to expand its service. The Deaf Children, Young People and Family Service, which is based at the Lime Trees Child Adolescent and Family Unit in York, will be opening new centres in Newcastle and Manchester.

Pensioners living at home in Brighton and Hove are having to pay more for council care than almost anywhere else in the country. The city has the second highest charges in the UK for the day care, on which many elderly residents and their families are forced to depend.

Tens of thousands of pensioners have been hit by huge hikes in fees for care they receive at home, an investigation has revealed.
 

A CONTROVERSIAL £4million residential care unit for teenagers with mental health problems looks set to open by the end of next year.