Forty inter-agency teams across the UK, comprising patients and staff from mental health, emergency department and ambulance services, have completed the first phase of a national programme to improve services for people who self-harm. These teams have already produced impressive results.

Tony Blair has rejected claims that the UK is a “police state for Muslims” as “categorically wrong”. Abu Bakr, who was arrested, questioned and then released without charge over an alleged kidnap plot, made the remarks on BBC Two’s Newsnight.

{mosimage}But the prime minister’s official spokesman said anyone arrested in a police state would not have been freed and allowed to appear on television. He said: “It is a gross caricature of the political process in this country.”

Commons leader Jack Straw also attacked the claims during business questions in the Commons. He told MPs: “We should not give excuse or quarter to those who claim this country is a police state – that is absolute, utter nonsense. We live in a democracy and what we are sadly having to fight at the moment is people who seek to destroy the very basis of our democracy.”

Mr Bakr, from Birmingham, when asked about his arrest, questioning and subsequent release without charge, had told the BBC: “It’s a police state for Muslims. It’s not a police state for everybody else because these terror laws are designed specifically for Muslims and that’s quite an open fact.”

Mr Bakr, who is studying for a PhD in Political Islam, said he became aware of the police forcing their way into his house early on Wednesday last week by his wife screaming. He added that he had been released by police a week later and told to “go back to things how they were”.

A hearing into the conduct of a Registered Social Worker from Loughton will be held on 16 February 2007 by the social care workforce regulator the General Social Care Council (GSCC).

Parents are set to benefit from a share of £7.5million being invested in better services for parents by the Government. Families Minister Beverley Hughes has explained that far from telling parents what to do, the Government wants parents to have the information and support that they are asking for.

Social workers may be at greater risk of facing sudden and unexpected poverty, according to the latest figures from welfare charity Elizabeth Finn Care. The organisation, which offers financial and emotional support to those whose careers have been interrupted or ended by personal tragedy, reports that social workers make up the seventh largest group helped by the charity.

Incoherent Government policy and inadequate funding is creating a crisis that threatens to overwhelm the prison health care system, says the British Medical Association.

Last month, the BMJ reported a fall in the number of young women attending smear tests. Now, two senior doctors warn that a new policy not to screen women aged 20-24 may be a factor in falling coverage and could increase the risk of cancer developing in young women.

The 40th anniversary in October this year of the passing of the UK Abortion Act is certain to be marked by attempts to reopen the debate about lowering the upper limit for legal terminations. In a special report in this week’s BMJ, journalist Jonathan Gornall examines current arguments for reform.

The position of Ivan Lewis, the health minister responsible for maternity services in England, was called into question yesterday after he failed to represent the government at the launch of a new maternity strategy for the NHS.

All newborn babies in England are to be checked for a rare inherited condition, the government has said. The test is for a metabolic disease called Medium Chain Acyl CoA Dehydrogenase Deficiency (MCADD).