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.

The Conservatives have promised to create an “army of professional child social workers fit for purpose” in place of the underfunded, overstretched workforce that exists today. The party has set up a new social work commission, which will sit like a select committee at Westminster and take evidence on how the profession can be better supported. In a speech to the Association of Directors of Society Services and Local Government conference, shadow children’s minister Tim Loughton admitted the Tories had not been seen as “fully engaged” with social workers.

Care workers have expressed concern at the delay of the Sexual Orientation Regulations after it was announced that the new laws will not come into force until April 2007 because of the huge number of responses to the legislation. The Liberal Democrat’s Women and Equality spokesperson Lorely Burt has been leading calls for the minister to step down after reports that the new Equality Act may be amended to allay fears of Christian groups, her demands were echoed by the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association.

A new breed of health carer has been thrust into the community to help people with long-term medical conditions avoid hospital treatment. Until the start of this year, patients with long-term health problems had to rely on their GP or social services to co-ordinate all aspects of their care. This involved several hospital visits a week, explaining their condition over and over again to different consultants – or being left to deal with their conditions alone.

Soaring levels of obesity might be linked to children sleeping fewer hours at night than they used to, claims a researcher in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. Dr Shahrad Taheri of the University of Bristol, blames the increasing availability of computers, mobile phones, TVs and other gadgets on the diminishing nightly quota of sleep, and suggests they should be banned from children’s bedrooms.

Police have named a 15-year-old boy who died after being taken ill at a Staffordshire residential care home. Ben Pointon, from Nine Foot Lane, Tamworth, was a resident at the Gables home in Burton-upon-Trent when he had a cardiac arrest. Staffordshire Police said on Tuesday they are not treating the death as suspicious.

Children’s services chiefs are divided over plans to put the private and voluntary sectors in charge of looked-after children. Senior figures have clashed over the proposal in last week’s Care Matters green paper to pass responsibility from local councils to “social care practices” run like GP surgeries.

People in Buckinghamshire who need mental health treatment in the community rely on a high standard of service, according to a national survey. The Healthcare Commission, which has a statutory duty to assess the performance of healthcare organisations, recently published its first national review of adult community mental health services. Bucks was one of only nine per cent nationwide to be graded excellent.