The number of children in Britain with autism is far higher than previously thought, according to dramatic new evidence by the country’s leading experts in the field.

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.

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.

Almost a third of nurses – some 4,000 – had not found jobs six months after qualifying last year, according to official statistics.

{mosimage}More than half of physiotherapists and one in five midwives were also still unemployed half a year after completing their studies, the Department of Health admits.

Professional bodies claimed taxpayers’ money is being wasted on training staff who then cannot find work in the NHS, and blamed Government squeezes on funding which lead to local healthcare trusts cutting junior healthcare positions.

At least 12,000 nurses qualified in May or September last year. But the Department of Health has admitted that only 69% had found jobs by March this year. Among physiotherapists, only 48 per cent managed to find jobs after finishing their training.

The Royal College of Midwives estimates 3,000 more midwives are needed but about 20% of newly qualified midwives failed to find work last year.

A Royal College of Nursing spokesman said: “It is a big problem. Entry-level jobs, for which newly qualified nurses apply, have been frozen because trusts have been told to reduce their deficits. “We think trusts need to be given more time and flexibility to manage their deficits as otherwise it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

An NHS manager was given a payoff of £480,000 because he could not find another job after a government-ordered reorganisation.

The parents of a 16-month-old girl who choked to death announced plans to sue the owners of her nursery yesterday after an inquest found the child was the victim there of “unlawful killing by gross negligence manslaughter”.

Thousands of people have been wrongly told they are in danger of developing life-threatening heart diseases because of flaws in the way doctors routinely calculate the risk, according to a study of more than a million people published today.

The NSPCC children’s charity has been given £30m by the government to expand Childline and other help lines.

In response to the publication of Medical Research Council research into self-harm among young people, Dr Andrew McCulloch, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation said: