Brits are ignoring basic home hygiene. This is one of the shocking facts revealed in the Hygiene Council’s 2007 global survey. Research shows that most public toilets are cleaner to eat off than kitchen work surfaces in British homes.

Biting, spitting, swearing and hair-pulling. These are some of the abuses courageous council staff endure in their day to day jobs. The information came to light after The Press used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain details of attacks on City of York Council workers.

Details of how the NHS in England will spend locally what the Chancellor has called “its biggest cash increase ever” of £8bn have been published by the Department of Health (DH).

A morbidly obese young man has died after losing his fight against a rare genetic disorder that compelled him to eat continuously. Chris Leppard, 25, died at 10.45am at the Conquest Hospital in St Leonards, East Sussex.

Organisations providing essential services for the Herefordshire’s older residents are on the lookout for ways to improve and expand the quality and range services they provide.

The Government has denied it plans to announce a complete split between professional training for adult and children’s social workers. At last week’s meeting of the Conservative Party’s Social Work Commission, the Social Care Institute for Excellence’s chair Allan Bowman said the move was imminent.

A hearing into the conduct of a Registered Social Worker from Lincoln will be held on 22 May 2007 by the social care workforce regulator for England the General Social Care Council (GSCC).

An £8bn increase in NHS spending in England this year will buy 390,000 extra operations, 400,000 more outpatient appointments and a new outreach service to help thousands of vulnerable people with long-term medical conditions such as diabetes and asthma, Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, said yesterday.

Nannies who can speak a second language, play the violin or cook like Jamie Oliver are commanding record salaries in the childcare market, driven by the desires of ambitious parents to give their children a head start.

A social worker drowned his disabled baby son in a bath because he could not cope with the pain that the child was suffering, a court was told. Andreas Milakovic, a German national who is deaf and cannot speak, wept in the dock as the story of his “mercy killing” was told at Sheffield Crown Court.