A major review into the bureaucratic and target-led culture of children’s services has begun. The review will be carried out as part of the work of the Lifting the Burdens Task Force, an independent body set up to look at the relationship between central and local government.

Hospital managers will have a duty to ensure all children receiving treatment for a mental disorder are placed in an environment “suitable for their age” following Parliament’s approval of the Mental Health Bill.

NHS Direct has welcomed Sir Ara Darzi’s report – ‘Simple and Direct Access to Emergency and Urgent Care Services Across London’ and hopes the potential reform outlined in the report will provide the opportunity for it to play an even more significant role in the health of Londoners.

Gordon Brown today made good on his promise to put the interests of children to the fore as he unveiled his government’s legislative plans. The prime minister unveiled bills to protect children in care and reform the child maintenance system, as well as revealing plans to seize millions of pounds from dormant bank accounts to spend on youth centres and community schemes.

{mosimage}The Children in Care Bill is intended to give looked after children the same life chances as their peers and a greater say in decisions regarding their future. The aim is to boost their achievements, partly by trying to ensure that education is not disrupted by children having to change schools in the run-up to GCSE-year exams. The bill, which covers England and Wales, also states that young people should not be forced out of care before they are ready and that supervision will be strengthened so they are visited regularly.

Some local authorities will take part in a pilot scheme to test a different model of organising social care by commissioning services from social work practices – modelled on GP practices. Mr Brown also announced plans to set up a new child maintenance and enforcement commission, to replace the discredited child support agency.

The child maintenance and other payments bill – which will apply to England, Wales and Scotland – also aims to simplify the process for assessing how much parents should pay, and give parents freedom to come to an arrangement without involving the authorities.

Under the unclaimed assets bill, cash in bank accounts that has been inactive for at least 15 years will be “recycled” for use in communities. However, there will be a “reclaim fund” so that people do not lose out if they were merely not aware an account was still open.

In England, the money – thought to total more than £400m – will be focused on youth services, while devolved administrations in the rest of the UK could set their own spending priorities.

Three friends held an epileptic “hostage” in a garden shed for four months until he eventually died, a court heard yesterday. Kevin Davies, 29, was repeatedly beaten, burnt and humiliated during his time in captivity in the Forest of Dean.

Anti-terrorist police and MI5 were under pressure last night to explain how the ringleader of the July 21 suicide bomb plot slipped through their net despite being captured on surveillance photographs more than 12 months before the attempted attacks on London.

The government’s Sure Start programme has proved a “very serious policy failure” and a “substantial wasted opportunity” for deprived black and ethnic minority families, according to a report out today.

A confidential study commissioned by the government’s Youth Justice Board after the death of a 15-year-old boy claims the way children are being restrained in young offender institutions is putting them at risk. The report, leaked to The Observer, states young offenders ‘report that they frequently experience difficulty in breathing during restraint.

{mosimage}There have been numerous reports from trainees indicating that many had experienced physical distress, difficulty breathing and other distress during restraints. The Review of Physical Control in Care and Behaviour Management in Secure Training Centres also reported:

‘Of those skills used, a number are unsafe and should be removed from the programme.’ Staff were alleged to ‘often manipulate an incident’ so that they are legally allowed to use force. It gives a typical example in which a staff member initiates a ‘low level of physical contact’.

The report was commissioned by the YJB, the body that oversees the institutions, in response to the death of 15-year-old Gareth Myatt in 2004, but has never been published. Myatt choked on his vomit after being restrained at Rainsbrook centre in Northamptonshire.

An inquest into Myatt’s death earlier this year recorded a verdict of accidental death but was critical of the role played by the YJB and Rebound ECD, the private company that runs Rainsbrook.

The leaked report found that in some centres as many as ’30 per cent’ of restraint techniques were used to overcome ‘non-compliance, specifically resistance to going to bed or moving from one location to another’. The findings suggest the institutions could be breaking the law. According to the Children Act 1989, ‘force should not be used… simply to secure compliance with staff instructions’.

At Hassockfield secure training centre in Co Durham, almost a quarter of restraint techniques result in an injury to the offender, according to the report which recommended outlawing the use of a number of techniques.

The whole issue is the subject of mounting controversy because the Ministry of Justice wants to change the law allowing for physical intervention as a ‘last resort’. The government says it is updating the law to provide clarification to those working with young offenders, but MPs and children’s charities are concerned it will mean an expansion in the use of restraint techniques.

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is funding legal action against a Primary Care Trust for operating an illegal blanket ban on providing sight-saving treatments.

Traditional ‘one size fits all’ hospitals are to be replaced by tightly focused specialist centres which will transform the experience of NHS patients. In a major shake-up of health care, the government will announce that London’s major hospitals will be transformed to focus their work on acute care.