A housing service is looking for residents to give vulnerable adults a home. The Bromley Scheme for Adult Placements houses people who have learning or physical disabilities or mental health needs.

Mental health chiefs in Norfolk last night announced that they were cutting 100 jobs after their funding was slashed by £2m a year, sparking fears that patient care will be affected.

Unlike those with physical disabilities, people who suffer from Alzheimer’s and similar diseases struggle to get help from the state. The number of people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia is soaring. And, says the Alzheimer’s Society, the cost of care is already more than £17bn.

Most foster carers in the UK are receiving either no payment at all or less than the minimum wage in return for caring for damaged and vulnerable young people, according to a survey out today.

Gordon Lishman, Director General of Age Concern, said: “We welcome today’s statement by Patricia Hewitt and Ruth Kelly. It is certainly a step in the right direction. Focusing on prevention, looking at the entire needs of older people and improved coordination between social services and the NHS is the only way forward for care.

The maximum wait for NHS hearing tests is to be slashed from more than two years to less than two months, as new technology is introduced to accelerate fitting of digital aids for hundreds of thousands of older people, the government said yesterday.

The Department of Health is today launching a campaign to boost the number of people taking up a career in social care. The new campaign aims to attract applicants to the social care sector, which needs to attract thousands of new recruits each year.

Young children are failing to get a good education in half the nursery and primary classes for three to five year olds, school inspectors warn in a report today. They are making insufficient progress in language and literacy, the most able are not being challenged and boys are already falling behind girls, says Ofsted.

Most Foundation Stage settings provide effective education and care, according to a new Ofsted report, The Foundation Stage: a survey of 144 settings.  However, the quality of provision varies between them.

Babies who attend formal child care, such as day nurseries, at the tender age of nine months are better behaved and less likely to experience a wide range of developmental problems at the age of three than the average child, according to new Government-funded research today.