A hime in home care charges has been blasted by Skegness County Councillor Mark Anderson. The Councillor is angry Lincolnshire County Council has agreed to increase the cost of home care from £5.15 an hour to £10. He said: “I’m very concerned the Conservative administration of LCC has agreed a 94 per cent hike in home care charges for the most vulnerable people in Skegness and the surrounding areas. The maximum amount anyone would have to pay would rise from £41 per week to £120, which is a 192 per cent hike.”

{mosimage}The row over the role of the face veil in British society showed no signs of cooling as Opposition leader David Cameron joined the fray. The Tory leader said he was concerned that the Muslim community was feeling “slightly targeted” by the continuing debate, but he expressed “great sympathy” with the Church of England junior school which suspended a Muslim teaching assistant for refusing to remove her veil. Three claims of discrimination and harassment by Aishah Azmi, 24, were dismissed by an employment tribunal on Thursday.

Adults with learning disabilities in South Ribble are to benefit from a new £750,000 community centre. A group of adults from the closed Bymbrig day centre were among the first to use the new facility at Bamber Bridge Methodist Church. Known as The Bridge Suite, the centre houses a worship centre, a large multi-purpose hall, the Marylands nursery unit and before and after school clubs.

The high priority given to developing the social care workforce in the Options for Excellence report has been welcomed by the GSCC, the body responsible for regulating the workforce. The General Social Care Council (GSCC) says the report is a further step towards developing the workforce and welcomes the vision of a trained and trusted workforce that it contains. It said the report is significant recognition of the importance of social care workers to improving standards of care for service users.

Social service chiefs have been told to address the challenge of demoralised staff to stop services from grinding to a halt. Niall Dickson, chief executive of healthcare thinktank the King’s Fund, said plans to improve future social care provision would be scuppered without a growing workforce to deliver. Mr Dickson, who commissioned former banker Derek Wanless to carry out an inquiry into the future of social care, said the report’s recommendations for improved scope of services could not happen without the staff in place.

A deranged mother became so convinced paedophiles were targeting her seven year-old daughter that she drowned the schoolgirl to protect her. Civil servant Heather Vinkenbrink, aged 45, developed an illness which led her to think her family was being persecuted.

The stress of family breakdowns could be causing children to reach puberty earlier, according to researchers. The trauma of watching parents split up, or having an absentee father, can lead to a youngster becoming sexually mature faster, doctors say.

Sectioned mental health patients are staying at home for weeks because there are no beds in NHS hospitals, doctors are warning. Leading consultant psychiatrist JS Bamrah told BMA News that doctors in England were recommending sectioning orders that could not be carried out.

A furious row broke out tonight between internet companies and the police after officers revealed they are being charged up to £1 million a year hunting on-line paedophiles and terrorists. Forces are asked to pay as much as to £20 a time to find out who potentially dangerous suspects are and where they live.

The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) has provided a new ‘signposting’ method to draw out messages for black and minority ethnic groups in its resources.