A nurse formerly in charge of a Birmingham nursing home where 27 elderly residents died in a year will face a disciplinary hearing next week.

Public sector recruitment is too often left in the hands of inexperienced human resources staff or narrowly focused recruitment consultants, a leading recruitment consultant said today.

Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg has called for an overhaul in how metal health services are provided in the UK.

Thousands of elderly people were charged too much for nursing care by the NHS. Patients wrongly charged for nursing care have had to be repaid a total of £180million by the Health Service, it has emerged.

DAME Helen Mirren has joined the fight to save services from being cut at the cash-strapped Fair Havens Hospice in Westcliff.

A psychologist who did counselling work at a mental health unit has been given a 12 month suspended prison sentence after she admitted having a sexual relationship with a patient.

A CARE home worker terrified mentally ill patients with a campaign of malicious practical jokes, an employment tribunal was told.

A DISABLED pensioner who had 30 carers in a year says she’s still suffering at the hands of unreliable care workers.

Three workers at a care home have been suspended after an inquest highlighted mistakes made before a man’s death.

More than half of nurses on mental health wards have been physically attacked, a survey suggests.

Nurses working with older people are the most likely to be assaulted, the joint Healthcare Commission and Royal College of Psychiatrists report said.

The study of 69 NHS trusts and private hospitals in England and Wales said patients had also been attacked and more had to be done to stop violence.

Health bosses said the situation was taken “very seriously”. The audit covered eight in 10 of the organisations providing in-patient care for the 30,000 mental health patients in England and Wales.

Nurses, doctors, visitors and patients were all asked about whether they had suffered attacks, threats and what could be done about it.

Some 46% of nurses in mental health wards for working age patients said they had been assaulted. For those working in older people’s wards this rose to 64%.