The Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities (FPLD) has called for more help in developing a “good local support” network to help children and adults with learning difficulties. Its co-director, Barbara McIntosh, also called for more research to be carried out into ways to promote social inclusion

The Government is exacerbating GP shortages and damaging patient care through “indefensible” cuts to valuable programmes aimed at guiding experienced GPs back to work, the British Medical Association (BMA) and Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) have said.

In addition to medicinal support, mental health charities like Rethink and the Mental Health Association are campaigning for more emotional support and practical advice to be provided for young carers. Jo Loughran, head of media and campaigns at Rethink, said:

{mosimage}The government is to issue new guidance for social care commissioners to help make telecare more mainstream, it was revealed today.

The parliamentary under secretary for care services, Ivan Lewis, announced that new guidance on telecare was to be issued to commissioners within the next two months.

Lewis told E-Health Insider Primary Care that the guidance would help commissioners work together to consider future developments in social care. Lewis said: “We have a moral obligation to look at the quality of care available for older people, and that isn’t just the state’s responsibility.

“There has to be more advice and protection made available to anyone who wants independent life, and we need to be able to clearly define what social care is. That is why we are releasing new social care guidance.”

He added: “Assistive technology and telecare have a great role to play, and government grants such as the Preventative Technology Grant have triggered innovation and change, but more needs to be done for everyone to recognise these advances as mainstream.”

The Home Office was rocked by a new debacle over prisoners last night as it emerged that a British gangster whose convictions for violent offences abroad were not entered on the police national computer committed an execution-style killing on his return to Britain.

Up to one in three mental health patients are being over-prescribed drugs, says the Healthcare Commission. A report found mental health patients were more likely to have problems with medicines than those in other trusts.

An official has been suspended over the Home Office’s failure to update police records of Britons convicted abroad. Some 27,000 case files, including 540 for serious or violent offences, were not put on the police computer.

Six men are going on trial accused of plotting to murder people in alleged bombing bids. Muktar Said Ibrahim, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, Hussain Osman, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Adel Yahya are standing trial at Woolwich Crown Court in east London charged with conspiracy to murder two weeks after the July 7 bombings in 2005.

A new weapon against MRSA is being developed with more than £3 million of funding from the Wellcome Trust, Britain’s leading research charity.

In its hard-hitting report, Gambling addiction and its treatment within the NHS, the BMA is calling for gambling to be a recognised addiction that requires treatment on the NHS.