Leading fostering charity, the Fostering Network has welcomed the Government announcement to invest an extra £100 annually into Child Trust Funds for every child spending the full year in care but warned there is still more work to be done.

Former care home manager Donald Andrasi has been charged with stealing from people with learning disabilities. Andrasi, 39, has been accused of siphoning off cash to the total value of £1,480 from two residents of the Rosewood care facility in Milton on nine different occasions between June 2003 and August 2005. Andrasi, of Chapman Court, Cambridge, spoke only to confirm his name and address when he appeared at Cambridge Magistrates’ Court.

The Shadow Health Secretary has promised that a Tory government would stop “snatch squads of social workers” taking children into care unnecessarily. Andrew Lansley said a Conservative government would instead back the family. The father-of-five used the party conference in Bournemouth to start a debate on how public services work for children.

The Information Centre for health and social care’s (The IC) new survey is set to make a huge difference in helping people with social care needs live independent lives, by collating social care information about the equipment they use. Community equipment provided by social services and the NHS can range from bedpans to specialist items and soon this diverse range will be documented as part of the nationwide survey to account for its local provision.

Care services for the elderly in East Sussex will soon be under far greater demand as the ‘baby-boomer’ generation reaches retirement age, the county council has warned. Council chiefs are planning how modern care services will be delivered for the generation of people born in the birth boom after the Second World War reaching their 60s in the coming few years, when they will increase pressure on services such as home care, meals in the community, occupational therapy, and day care, among many others.

Ambulance crews in Swindon will be able to refer patients to other health workers instead of going to hospital. The NHS initiative means that Great Western Ambulance crews could directly refer patients to staff at Swindon Primary Care Trust and social services. The scheme aims to avoid unnecessary trips to hospital.

Union leaders have won government backing for a campaign calling on firms to stamp out bullying in the workplace. Amicus said only 2% of employers currently had a policy of zero tolerance towards bullying at work. The union said bullying was costing industry up to £2bn a year in sick pay, staff turnover and lost productivity.

A “hypervirulent” strain of the superbug Clostridium difficile has caused or contributed to the deaths of least 49 people at three hospitals in Leicester in eight months, an NHS trust confirmed yesterday. Officials at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS trust admitted that an “extremely virulent” strain of the bacterium had caused the deaths of 28 patients and contributed to a further 21.

The prison service has no strategy to tackle al-Qaida operatives radicalising and recruiting young African-Caribbean and other ethnic minority prisoners in British jails, according to prison officers. Britain now houses more suspected terrorist prisoners – the number is in the high hundreds – than any other European country, with many housed on normal wings alongside ordinary offenders.

Skills for Care, the adult social care workforce development body, will showcase its new continuing professional development (CPD) suite of products at the National Children and Adult Services Conference on October 19th at the Brighton Hilton.