Most frail elderly people who need help with washing, cleaning and shopping are no longer getting it, a watchdog has said. Two thirds of the town halls responsible for providing home help to the elderly only provide it to those with the most serious problems, it said. The figures from the Government body charged with checking the standards of care homes and social workers add to growing evidence that growing numbers of older people are losing their home helps and meals on wheels.

The biggest “blind” lobby ever will take place today as 500 angry blind and partially sighted people from across the UK march on Parliament. The action is in support of the campaign3 led by the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) for blind people to be able to claim the same level of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) benefit as wheelchair users.

Twenty care home workers who help adults with learning difficulties are to lose their jobs. The agency staff, who all work at the Cherwell Centre in Heywood, Rochdale, have been told their contracts are up and there will be no more work. Rochdale council claims the move has come about naturally as their contract has come to an end. The council says the service will not suffer and it will save taxpayers’ cash.

United Response, a learning disability and mental health charity, has declared that only ten per cent of people with learning disabilities in the UK can find any kind of work. The Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities (FPLD) has responded by saying that it is the responsibility of employment agencies to encourage this demographic into work.

Proposed new powers announced in the Queen’s Speech to tackle crime should focus on prevention rather than simply enforcement, according to the editors of the new Chartered Institute of Housing book, Supporting Safer Communities – housing, crime and neighbourhoods. Home Office plans for two new bills to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour should avoid knee-jerk responses to anti-social behaviour and crime and have a greater emphasis on working in and with communities to make them safer.

Sex offenders could face compulsory lie detector tests in future after a pilot project was judged a success. The Home Office will now consult on the scheme, which aims to monitor offenders’ behaviour in the community. The pilot scheme involved about 350 convicted sex offenders in England many of whom gave information that helped probation staff supervise them.

A report raises serious concerns about the validity of a sudden infant death study used in the case against expert witness Professor Sir Roy Meadow. At a murder trial, Professor Meadow said it was unlikely cot death would strike a family more than once. But a Lancet study published in 2005 suggested almost 90% of second deaths in the same family are natural. Now a special report in the British Medical Journal casts doubt on the data and conclusions of the Lancet study.

Chancellor Gordon Brown says he is upbeat about his son’s future after revealing four month old Fraser has been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. Mr Brown received messages of support from political allies and opponents, with Tory leader David Cameron among the first to offer his best wishes.

{mosimage}In a positive statement Mr Brown and his wife Sarah said their son was “fit and healthy”. They lost their daughter Jennifer Jane in 2002 after she was born prematurely.

A spokesman for the couple – who have one other son, John – said they were told in late July that Fraser may have the genetic disease and tests had now confirmed it.

The spokesman said Fraser was “fit, healthy and making all the progress that you would expect any little boy to make”.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a life-threatening inherited disease that disrupts the way the digestive and respiratory systems work.

Mr Brown’s spokesman said: “Thousands of other parents are in the same position.”

“They are confident that the advice and treatments available, including proper exercise and, later, sporting activity will keep him fit and healthy.”

A former prisons chief has launched a scathing attack on the Government over the prison overcrowding crisis. Lord Ramsbotham writes in the Independent that the Government’s reforms of the prison service are “deeply flawed” and that it needs to rethink its long-term strategy.

More than 150 illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers will be freed from custody after a riot wrecked Britain’s biggest detention centre. John Reid was forced to release the men back on to the streets after a wave of blazes and destruction lasting for more than 18 hours at Harmondsworth, in west London.