Hospitals, schools, local authorities and even the police face legal action if they fail to comply with sweeping new laws requiring that all public bodies improve services for the disabled. The Disability Rights Commission (DRC) has told The Times that it is prepared to sue any public body that fails to produce and implement proposals on raising standards of care for the disabled and eliminate all remaining discrimination.

People caring for sick or disabled relatives have been offered support from their MPs. Both Linda Riordan, for Halifax, and Chris McCafferty, the member for Calder Valley, set up surgeries to listen to the concerns of full-time carers. It comes at a time when Calderdale Council’s social services department heads towards a £1 million overspend, which has created a waiting list of almost 100 people with critically high needs for home-care services.

The Government received a large response to its plans to ensure more people become involved in local decision making, Health Minister Rosie Winterton has announced. Almost 500 people responded to the Department of Health’s A Stronger Local Voice consultation – which advocated the introduction of a more joined-up, flexible and effective system, with Local Involvement Networks (LINks) being established to replace and build on the work of patient forums.

The House of Commons Select Committee says that tackling NHS deficits in England by slashing the amount spent on training NHS staff is unacceptable. Responding to the report, Mr James Johnson, Chairman of Council at the BMA, says.

MPs have called for the controversial NHS accounting system to be scrapped or refined as NHS trusts struggle with debts they have no hope of repaying. The cross-party health select committee inquiry into NHS deficits warned that the absence of financial control in the NHS was leading to cuts that affected staff morale and impacted on patient care.

Paedophiles could be driven underground if the media continue to publish details of their whereabouts, a police force have warned. Child killer Robert Oliver, 52, had to be escorted from his home in Bishops Lydeard, Somerset, by riot police yesterday following a day-long protest by local residents.

For the fifth year running, adult social care services in Hampshire have been given a two-star rating. Council chiefs said they were “delighted” to keep their two stars, despite growing financial difficulties. The council was judged to be “serving most people well with promising prospects for improvement”.

More single women and lesbians could get IVF under Government plans to scrap the requirement for doctors to consider a child’s ‘need for a father’. Currently doctors can only give fertility treatment if they believe their patient has taken into account a child’s need for a father-figure.

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt today announced the creation of eleven new Biomedical Research Centres of excellence across England to drive the development, testing and uptake of new and better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat ill-health. These Centres, within England’s leading NHS-University partnerships, will focus on “translational research” that will take advances in basic medical research out of the laboratory and into the hospital clinic.

Detectives investigating the killings of two prostitutes in Ipswich revealed last night that they had found a third victim. The body of another young woman, believed by police to work as a prostitute, was found at 3.20pm in woodland in Nacton, about four miles south-east of Ipswich. A woman walking through the woods discovered the body of the woman, who was believed to be in her late teens or early 20s.