The “postcode lottery” that means cancer patients miss out on new drugs is the fault of local health trusts, the head of Nice, the NHS drug watchdog, has said.

When Helen Pacha was just 13, she lost her eyesight in a freak fairground accident and ever since has relied on the kindness of strangers to get about.

A “DEPRESSED” carer who ripped off £400 from a 94-year-old woman in a Bristol residential home has been handed a suspended jail term.

Local authorities have been warned by the government that they will lose their responsibility for care if they fail to improve services over the next three years, according to the Independent.

WILTSHIRE County Council has won £1.4m to build extra care housing aimed at helping the elderly and those with long-term conditions.

Prison bosses in England and Wales have failed to respond to a call to introduce special policies for elderly inmates, the prisons inspector says.

No action will be taken by police after an initial investigation into conditions at a Northamptonshire care home concludes.

Southern Cross, Britain’s largest operator of nursing homes, said yesterday earnings were running 8% better than last year, but admitted that it had still failed to resolve its long-term funding issues.

A private nursing home has been closed down by a social care watchdog after three snap inspections found residents were being “put at serious risk”.

An “old boy network” of officials is deliberately obstructing police investigating decades of alleged abuse at care homes in Jersey, according to the police officer who spearheaded the inquiry.