Less than a third of dedicated action teams provide a good or excellent service to those trying to quit drugs, the Healthcare Commission has said. The watchdog said drug treatment services across England were getting better, but more needed to be done to tackle a postcode lottery of care. It has produced a report together with The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) to assess performance at a local level.

Bupa Care Homes Ltd has today been fined £90,000 and ordered to pay £19,247 costs in a prosecution by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), following the death of 95-year-old woman, Mrs Charlotte Wood from Mottingham.

Nine million people in the UK have arthritis and a national charity in the forefront of health and social care campaigning is now offering them a say in planning its priorities for the future. Arthritis Care is the UK’s largest organisation  representing the interests of those with arthritis at  local, national and international level. It raises awareness of their needs, and works to persuade decision-makers to provide better services to help them manage a condition which is the country’s biggest single cause of physical disability.

Our sovereign value: fairness This lecture takes us to the wellsprings of progressive politics. It is about our sovereign value: fairness. It is about potential never explored; talent torn-off unused, the inability to live a life free from the charity of others. The objective is timeless: we want to expand opportunities so that nobody whatever their background or circumstance should be left behind.

NHS bosses in West Sussex have revealed more details of cost-cutting plans which have enraged protesters who fear the loss of A&E and other services. West Sussex Primary Care Trust (PCT), which officially comes into being on 1 October, will cater for 762,000 people. But unless changes are made to the county’s hospital services, it will have a £94m deficit by 2008. The PCT said on Tuesday it wanted to treat more patients in local urgent care centres or in their own homes.

An NHS mental health trust in Leicestershire is cutting back services as it struggles to meet a government debt-cutting target. Leicestershire Partnership Trust, which is facing a £7.3m overspend, is closing several wards and three day hospitals temporarily to cut costs. Other cuts include using CT scans rather than more expensive MRI scans.

Councils are failing to support child criminals who are released from prison, a report has claimed. The Howard League for Penal Reform said young inmates were being “sidelined” because of a tendency to regard them as “undeserving of mainstream rights and services”. Its report pointed out that town halls had a duty to care for such children on release from jail.

{mosimage} The private healthcare giant Bupa will be sentenced at Southwark crown court in London tomorrow after admitting a serious lapse in safety standards that contributed to the death of a 95-year-old woman at one of its care homes in Kent. Charlotte Wood fell while being hoisted into the bath by an inadequately-trained care worker who was using equipment for the first time and did not know the correct procedure. Mrs Wood died four days later after contracting pneumonia in hospital and a postmortem examination concluded that the fall was a secondary cause of death.The case was a serious blow to the reputation of Bupa, one of the largest care home operators in Britain. It runs 298 homes, providing care for 21,000 residents, carrying out 51m lifts and hoists a year. Bupa is likely to receive a hefty fine.

{mosimage} A review of the way Soham murderer Ian Huntley is supervised in jail is under way after his latest suicide bid, the Home Office has said. Huntley was found unconscious in his cell at Wakefield Prison at 0119 BST on Tuesday after a suspected overdose. He is now under heavy sedation at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield where his stomach has been pumped.

The 32-year-old received two life terms for murdering Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells in Soham, Cambridgeshire in 2002. Prison sources told the BBC that Huntley was on liquid medication and it was unclear how he had stored medicine for his latest suicide bid.

On the occasion of a major lecture on social exclusion by the Prime Minister, Rt Hon Tony Blair MP, which it is hosting this week, the Director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Lord (Richard) Best called on those forming Government policies to take a balanced view in debates on tackling disadvantage.