Frail old people and disabled adults are to be hit with a 132 per cent increase in home care charges. Labour-run Lambeth council is to ramp up charges for services such as meals on wheels and home help from £7.55 an hour to £17.50.

Referral management schemes pose a serious threat to patients’ interests, argues Peter Lapsley, Chief Executive of the Skin Care Campaign, in this week’s BMJ. Referral management schemes are springing up across the NHS as a means of reducing primary care trusts’ spending on secondary care services.

The pharmaceutical industry, academia and government agencies need to work together to restore faith in drug development, say doctors in this weeks’ BMJ. They argue that the recent litigation over the drug Vioxx, produced by Merck and Co. Inc., has highlighted the failings of the current system, which can be open to abuse.

A health trust has been heavily criticised for “institutional abuse” of people with learning disabilities. The Healthcare Commission, which carried out the review at Sutton and Merton Primary Care Trust (PCT), said care was “simply not acceptable”.

{mosimage}It is the second report in six months to highlight neglect of people with learning difficulties. The Commission will now carry out a national audit of 200 NHS and private services in England.

The results will be made available later this year.

The review of care at Orchard Hill hospital, community homes in Sutton and Merton and Osbourne House in Hastings was requested after a number of serious incidents, including allegations of physical and sexual abuse.

Although the trust was found to have followed correct procedures when responding to the serious incidents, the Commission concluded that “outmoded, institutionalised care” had led to neglect of people with learning difficulties.

It found “impoverished and completely unsatisfactory” living conditions, with some people staying in cramped rooms and only having access to three or four hours of activity a week.

A British disability charity is trying to ensure that an “Ashley X case” could not happen to a child in the UK.

New powers restricting the activities of those suspected of money laundering, fraud, drugs and human trafficking are to be included in a Serious Crime Bill.

Parents could be sent text messages by police warning them that a paedophile is on the loose in their area under plans being considered by Downing Street.

Up to 200 learning disability units will be inspected after the health watchdog found examples of “institutional abuse” in one NHS trust.

NHS debt is taking its toll on accident and emergency (A&E) departments in England, the BMA says at the launch of a new report on A&E waiting times.

Fewer than one in ten of the general public have the skills to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), new research from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) reveals.