A shake-up of adult social care is to be further delayed because of a lack of evidence that the voluntary sector is ready to cope. The cost-cutting measures mean those with moderate needs would no longer be eligible for help from Bradford Council – saving the authority £1.7 million a year.

Proposals to widen the scope and improve the delivery of the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) programme by making the application process more flexible, easier and quicker are being consulted on.

Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA’s GPs Committee commenting on the Health Secretary’s remarks about GP pay said: “The increases in GP pay were directly linked, at government insistence, to demonstrating the quality of the services they provide.

A major new partnership initiative has been launched to coordinate and develop services for people with autism in the North East. The North East Autism Consortium, led by the National Autistic Society (NAS), will bring together local agencies and services, as well as people with autism, to establish a long term strategy to meet the needs of the 26,000 children and adults living with autism in the region.

A hospital is set to close despite a pre-election promise from the Prime Minister that there was “no question” of it being shut down. A review of health services in Teesside has recommended that two hospitals in Hartlepool and Stockton should close and be replaced with a single “super-hospital”.

{mosimage}The proposal, backed by the Health Secretary, has caused anger in Hartlepool, where a campaign has been running since rumours surfaced that the town’s popular hospital could close. In the 2004 by-election, called when Peter Mandelson stepped down, Hartlepool’s hospital was a key issue during the campaigning.

In an interview with the Hartlepool Mail newspaper on September 9 that year, Tony Blair said: “There is no question of the hospital closing or being run down. I hope people understand there has never been any question of the hospital closing. We are there to improve it and not run it down.”

The then Health Secretary John Reid also backed Hartlepool Hospital to remain open. Mr Mandelson’s successor as Labour candidate, Iain Wright, went on to retain the seat for the party, with the Liberal Democrat’s Jody Dunn 2,000 votes behind. He held the seat, with an increased majority, at the 2005 General Election.

Between October and December 2006, the Independent Reconfiguration Panel looked at services provided by Hartlepool General Hospital and Stockton’s North Tees General Hospital. It recommended that services should be provided by one hospital, accessible to people across North Teesside and South Durham, including patients living in the Prime Minister’s Sedgefield constituency. The new hospital could be built within four years.

Scientists have unravelled the workings of a deadly superbug that attacks healthy young people and can kill within 24 hours.

The ex-minister who supervised a massive expansion in anti-social behaviour orders, David Blunkett, has admitted some young people regard the controversial measures as a “badge of honour”.

More than 200 patients died last year as a result of mistakes made by hospital staff while another 1,800 were made worse during treatment, it has been revealed.

{mosimage}Some patients were given overdoses of radiation or had healthy organs removed in operations, while others died after being wrongly attached to medical equipment.

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that 2,109 events which could injure patients, staff or public – known as serious untoward incidents – were reported to health authorities in 2006.

At least 221 resulted in avoidable deaths, including a 76-year-old man who had a feeding tube inserted into his lungs instead of his stomach and a pensioner who was given air instead of pure oxygen. Hundreds more patients were made worse while in hospital because of wrong diagnoses or mistakes in treatment, such as a woman who had chemotherapy and surgery for ovarian cancer when she never had the disease.

The proportion of profits GPs take out of their practices has increased since the new contract started in 2004, pushing average pay above £100,000. In an interview with the BBC News website, Patricia Hewitt said in hindsight ministers would have wanted to ensure doctors did not take so much.

A retired general labourer living in a Lancashire nursing home died after falling on the way to the bathroom, an inquest was told. Seventy-two-year-old Norman Hurst Kenyon was a resident of Starmount Villa Residential Care Home when he died on October 11, 2005.