A woman of 85 was left to die after falling down a flight of stairs at a care home because staff were banned from dialling 999. Mary Carty fractured her spine and suffered a serious head wound when she tumbled down a staircase at a private residential home.

Victims of domestic violence will be able to flee to a haven in their own homes under plans to fit them with safe rooms. The government has told all local authorities they must arrange for one room in the family home to be fitted with reinforced doors, mortice locks and alarms which link straight to the police if victims ask for it.

Children want a good home that is safe and to be treated as individuals, not as ‘children in care’, according to a report out today. In his consultation about the Government’s proposals in the Green Paper ‘Care Matters’, the Children’s Rights Director for England was told that the top promise children want councils to make to them is that they will have a good and safe home.

Newly qualified nurses desperate for a job are working for less than the minimum wage, it emerged today. The County Durham and Darlington NHS foundation trust and North Tees and the Hartlepool NHS trust are offering “honorary” training contracts to some nurses unable to secure other work.

The scale of the cash crisis faced by Wirral’s adult social services department was exposed at a full council meeting this week. Harsh realisations dawned upon councillors who admitted to “rationing resources” in order to cope with steep cuts.

New research published today by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) has revealed that many schools fail to listen to advice from disabled children or their parents about what helps them at school and what helps in accessing the curriculum.

The most infirm elderly and severely disabled Islington residents are now more likely to be forced out of their homes and into residential care – to save money, it is claimed.

Millions more people will be forced to care for elderly and disabled relatives because of a lack of investment, disability campaigners have said. The Disability Rights Commission (DRC) estimates that the number of unpaid carers will increase from six million to nine million over the next 25 years.

The quality of youth services is gradually improving according to a new report published by Ofsted. Building on the best: overview of local authority youth services 2005-06 reveals that a greater proportion of youth services were judged as good or better in 2005/06 than in previous years.

The UK has been accused of failing its children, as it comes bottom of a league table for child well-being across 21 industrialised countries. The Unicef report looked at 40 indicators including poverty, peer and family relationships and health. The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland head the list.

{mosimage}Children’s charities have condemned the findings. The government says it has made progress on child well-being through several initiatives.

Unicef – the United Nations’ children’s organisation – says the report, titled Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries, is the first study of childhood across the world’s industrialised nations.

Unicef UK executive director David Bull said all the countries had weaknesses that needed to be addressed. “By comparing the performance of countries we see what is possible with a commitment to supporting every child to fulfil his or her full potential,” he said.