Keeping Staffordshire’s council-run care homes would add £100 to the council tax bill of every household in the county. This is the stark claim being put forward by Staffordshire County Council’s cabinet member for social care and health Councillor Susan Woodward.

A recent survey carried out by YouGov has revealed that two-thirds of the public would prefer to see funding for care services assessed by the type of care the service user will need and not based on their means.

A massive influx of migrant staff in the social care sector is causing disruption for those being looked after because of high staff turn¬over rates, academics have warned.

A bulletin published today by social care watchdog the Commission for Social Care Inspection shows that, while many services have improved the way they handle people’s money, there are examples of bad practice.

Thousand of elderly people are living in filthy care homes exposed to the risk of infections and malnutrition. Inspectors found one in three homes provides barely “adequate” living conditions, and rated hundreds as “poor”.

{mosimage}It means many residents are at risk from untrained staff and low standards of cleanliness. In addition, some are not being helped to eat or are given unappetising food, while others struggle to get their medication or see doctors when ill. The catalogue of failings is exposed after the Liberal Democrats used Freedom of Information laws to obtain details of inspections in England.

The information was collected by the Commission for Social Care Inspection, which monitors care homes, but has not been released ahead of a new rating scheme to be introduced next year. The homes are divided into four categories: poor, adequate, good and excellent. In total, 732 were rated poor, and 3,086 were adequate. More than 400,000 of those aged 65 and above live in care homes.

Health Minister Ivan Lewis admitted in January that many elderly people were effectively being starved to death in homes, with some given a single scoop of mashed potato as a meal.

Yesterday, in a special Radio 4 ‘You and Yours’ programme, he said Labour was fully aware of the crisis facing Britain’s soaring elderly population, which ‘is one of the great political challenges facing our society’. But critics claim the Government has failed to provide extra funding to match the growing demands, leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab.

The Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) has published two new resources to help both employers and employees prepare for the Integrated Qualifications Framework (IQF), due to be fully implemented by 2010.

Doctors are calling for regulators to offer guidance over whether they should help patients circumvent “shortcomings” of NHS care. A recent report highlighted moves such as having tests done privately to jump NHS waiting lists.

A mass rally yesterday called for a one-off amnesty to allow hundreds of thousands of immigrants living in the UK to become full citizens. The Strangers Into Citizens campaign, which attracted thousands of supporters to Trafalgar Square, proposes that migrants who have been in Britain for more than four years should be given a two year work permit without access to benefits.

The genetic roots of bipolar disorder – manic depression – have been revealed by the first scan of the entire human genetic code, revealing a new target for treatments. Bipolar disorder affects one person in every 100 inducing mood changes from extremes of depression to irritation, elation and mania.

A package of measures to head off a summer prison overcrowding crisis, including abolishing the option of custody for shoplifting offences, has been vetoed by Tony Blair, The Times has learnt.