A health minister has ordered council bosses to talk with the borough’s Primary Care Trust (PCT) chiefs to sort out an £8 million social care row. Lord Philip Hunt dismissed any legal challenge to the transfer of social care costs from Brent PCT to Brent Council as ‘highly unlikely’ in response to a concerned letter from MP Dawn Butler.

Many patients do not know about the performance of their local NHS services, a poll suggests. Nearly a third said they were unaware how their local hospitals and GPs compared to others. And the Policy Exchange think tank poll of 1,000 people also found 79% wanted simple scorecards to refer to.

Pro-abortion MPS are preparing for a bitter political battle in an attempt to bring in termination on demand in the first three months of pregnancy. The cross-party group of MPs will also press to remove the need for two doctors to approve a termination, and for the procedure to be medically justified.

A judge has revealed that 14 children born to the same mother have been put into care because of her addiction to crack cocaine and other drugs. Apart from the human cost of the damage to the children’s upbringing, the bill to taxpayers to look after the children is likely to exceed £2m.

At the opening of UK carers week today, directors of adult services in England have urged the country’s nearly 4.88 million carers to look much more closely at ways of controlling their own care budgets.

Scientists say they have discovered a new gene linked with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. People with a damaged copy of the gene, GAB2, may be at four times increased risk of

The findings of an inquiry into why a convicted murderer freed from prison was able to abduct and rape a ten-year-old boy will remain secret because its publication would infringe the killer’s right to privacy.

{mosimage}The Parole Board cites the Data Protection Act to justify its refusal to make public the findings of an internal review into its 2005 decision to free Stephen Ayre.

A separate internal inquiry was conducted by the Probation Service into its supervision of Ayre after his release. It was sent to the Home Office and also remains private. Ayre, 45, was jailed for life in 1985 for bludgeoning Irene Hudson, 25, to death with an iron bar. She had a mental age of 13.

He was given a minimum tariff of 14 years. His first four attempts to gain parole were rejected and he had served 20 years in prison before he was finally released, with the approval of a parole panel, in April 2005.

Ayre spent the next six months in a Probation Service hostel before he was allowed to move into rented accommodation in Shipley, West Yorkshire, in October 2005. He was still being monitored by the service. Four months later, in February last year, he lured a ten-year-old boy to his flat, promising to give him a BMX bicycle. He threatened to slash the terrified child’s throat before raping him.

Ayre admitted abduction and rape and was told by a judge that he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. Mr Justice Tugendhat told him that it was not the court’s role to establish “how you were free to commit these . . . very serious offences”, but added that “the family and the public will be concerned about certain aspects of this case”.

After the hearing, West Yorkshire Probation Service announced that it had ordered an internal inquiry into its role “as a matter of urgency”.

Mental health hospital admissions in England due to cannabis have risen by 85% under Labour, figures show.

One in eight NHS hospital patients still has to wait more than a year for treatment, the government acknowledged yesterday in its first attempt to tell the full truth about health service queues in England.

The parents of a severely disabled boy have launched a court battle against the closure of their local casualty unit saying the move could lead to his death.