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.

{mosimage}Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton is expected to hail inroads into child poverty on Wednesday, but warn there is plenty left to do. A report from the Department for

Mental health charity Rethink has responded to the think tank ‘Reform’s’ report on mental health care; ‘Mental health services in the NHS: using reform incentives.’ Rethink’s director of public affairs Paul Corry said: “Rethink welcomes this report which shows that people experiencing a mental illness encounter poor community services, long waiting times and lack of access to specialist care.

A think tank report has suggested that only the introduction of patient choice and competition can succeed in delivering better NHS mental health services. Published by the centre-right Reform group, the study said that current services concentrate on the most seriously mentally ill and that more resources should be diverted to community care.

Hundreds of carers are missing out on vital support services because they have not asked for their needs to be assessed, according to East Sussex County Council. The authority is launching a county-wide series of roadshows in a bid to bolster the numbers of carers who are assessed to see how the council may be able to help them. This could lead to benefits including paid-for breaks from caring, training courses or equipment to make their lives easier – or they could be referred to partner organisations who can offer them support.

The plight of teachers who suffer unfounded allegations of abuse from pupils is now relatively well known, although still too little has been done about it. Less well known is that many foster parents are victims too. Many teachers are suspended, often for long periods, and cut off from support networks, before they are reinstated. Foster carers suffer even more. They can lose their income, and the child or children they have been fostering, while complaints are slowly and painfully investigated. The disruption to the children is appalling and the impact on the carers is devastating.

As many as 80 cottage and community hospitals in England are threatened with cuts or closures in direct contradiction to Government policy, which calls for more health services near people’s homes. Campaigners have said that 10 community hospitals closed within the first six months of this year and that since 1999 as many as 2,000 local beds had been lost. The cuts are being forced by financial deficits and many of the affected hospitals are in Conservative constituencies.