A mental health unit which has more than doubled in size has been officially opened. Following £7 million of work, the Herschel Prins Centre, at Glenfield Hospital, can now accommodate women for the first time.

Children at risk of abuse or neglect face even greater danger because of a new system designed to cut costs and speed up care proceedings, the Government has been warned.

Figures seen by The Times show that since the new system was introduced last September, the number of applications to take children into care in London has dropped by 30 per cent as local authorities struggled to make it work. London was one of a dozen areas – and the biggest – chosen to pilot the new system. The Government was unable to provide data for the other pilot areas.

In some London boroughs applications to courts for “care orders”, which are legally required to take children into local authority care, have fallen by 75 per cent since the pilot began.

A decision to close three residential centres in East Sussex will see 10 disabled people having to move home, the county council has said.

The homelessness service provided by Preston City Council is ‘good’ but with ‘uncertain’ prospects for further improvement, according to an independent report released today by the Audit Commission.

Mike Wardle, chief executive of the General Social Care Council, on how social workers must respond to the increasing trend for individualised services

The daughter of a disabled pensioner has attacked social services after her mother had to go six weeks without essential home care.The problems began for Marion Fawkes, 81, when she was forced to move in with her daughter following the summer floods.

The inquiry into the murder of a bus passenger stabbed to death by a paranoid schizophrenic man when the victim objected to him throwing chips at his girlfriend yesterday strongly criticised “lackadaisical and nonchalant” attitudes in the criminal justice system.

Research into child killers by Bournemouth University has forced its authors into a contentious conclusion. They believe “Ian Huntley-type” personalities should have to prove they are safe to live among us before they are let out of prison – even if they haven’t killed anyone.

Social services for families in rural Derbyshire have been given a £600,000 boost as part of a council project. The county council is running a three-year pilot scheme which will see a new team of social workers created to cover the Derbyshire Dales.

Nigella Lawson and Sarah Brown opened the first Maggie’s Cancer Care Centre outside Scotland yesterday, marking the launch of a network of facilities across the rest of the UK.

The £3.5m centre, at the Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith, London, will provide the same information and advice which is already on offer at the charity’s five existing centres north of the border. It was designed by Lord Rogers, who is responsible for several landmark buildings such as the Millennium Dome and the Pompidou Centre.

Another six centres are planned for England and Wales and are expected to be completed by 2012.

Mrs Brown, who is a patron of Maggie’s, said the new centre would provide a “fantastic service” for cancer sufferers. She added: “These world-class designed centres have offered professional support and information for people in Scotland and it is a tribute to this success that they have been invited to London and other locations in England and Wales.”

Ms Lawson said: “Richard Rogers and his team have created both a stunning piece of architecture and, crucially, an intimate and supportive domestic centre which will have a helpful impact on people living with cancer.”