Skills for Care is reminding registered care providers that the Common Induction Standards, introduced in September last year, replace the original induction and foundation standards from 1 October this year. Two new Skills for Care books, for managers and for new workers, show how to use the new standards to improve the quality of social care. The Common Induction Standards are designed to help new workers provide high quality social care and to prepare them for further learning and assessment in health and social care NVQs. Induction to Skills for Care standards is a requirement for registered care services inspected by CSCI.

Care leavers who can use visual or performing arts to describe their hopes, fears and visions of the future are wanted for a special event to mark the start of National Care Leavers Week 2006. Taking place at Tate Britain in the evening of 23 October, Futures will showcase the achievements of people with care experience and highlight any barriers to their progression. Young care leavers with all interests – including music, film, art, poetry and comedy – are invited to submit ideas for presentations to show at the event. Futures is a collaboration by A National Voice (ANV), the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), Barnardo’s, the Princes Trust and the National Leaving Care Advisory Service (NLCAS).

Cherie Blair is vowing to fight a council threatening to take a multiple sclerosis sufferer away from her husband and put her in a home. The council, cutting dozens of services after a £10.8million overspend, told Mary McGee, 61, it was slashing her care to save cash and warned she could be put in residential care. Husband and carer James, 62, wrote to barrister Mrs Blair pleading for help.

The extra billions invested in the NHS have been largely wasted, an independent thinktank claims today, resulting in far less improvement in services than might have been expected. A report from Civitas (the Institute for the Study of Civil Society) says that while government spending on the NHS has doubled in cash terms from 2000 – an increase of around a third in real terms – productivity has gone down.

Care homes for elderly and disabled people will be subject to new surprise “sweeps” by inspectors to improve the quality of food and prevent the overuse of sedatives.Themed spot checks will be part of a new inspection regime aimed at raising standards for the 500,000 adults living in 20,000 care homes. The Times disclosed in June that the homes would be given hotel-style rankings so that residents and their relatives know what standard of service to expect.

{mosimage} Millions of people in England will soon have a better way of judging the quality of care services they or their relatives and friends rely on. New ratings (1-4) for all 28,000 care providers in England will let the public see easily whether care providers are excellent, good, adequate or poor. The public is now being consulted on the details of how the new system will work.  CSCI’s newly appointed Chief Inspector Paul Snell said: “You may be a young disabled person who needs some help to get ready in the morning, or an older person choosing a care home, or you may be trying to choose a care service for your mother, father, son, daughter, or other relatives or friends. 

Fourteen prison officers have been suspended in north London following allegations of corrupt behaviour. The governor of HMP Pentonville took action following claims of trafficking and “inappropriate relations”, a Prison Service spokeswoman said. The jail is to “briefly reduce” its maximum number of inmates as a result, she added. Prison Service director general Phil Wheatley said he would not tolerate corruption of any sort. He said “appropriate disciplinary action” would be taken if necessary.

A suggestion by the former chairman of the Commons science committee that inbreeding may be behind a sharp increase in diabetes cases has sparked a row in his Norfolk constituency and the medical world. The claim, made by the Labour MP Dr Ian Gibson, followed publication of research showing the county had more than double the number of children diagnosed with type one diabetes than would be expected for its level of population. In the past three years doctors have treated 42 new cases of the condition in Norfolk among children, compared with a national average of 24 for a county the same size.

More than 40,000 medication errors are made in the NHS in a year, it was revealed today, and while most mistakes lead to no ill effects, 2,000 cause moderate to severe harm to patients. The figures have been collated by the National Patient Safety Agency from reports of mistakes in the dose or type of drug given to patients and submitted to the agency by doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff. The statistics inevitably underestimate the problem to a degree since not all errors are reported.

Pam Hutton has had to navigate some low points in her life and has battled with serious depression for much of her adulthood. The mother of three tried to commit suicide on several occasions, lost her job, got divorced, and has been treated with medications and electro-convulsive therapy. But Ms Hutton, 55, has now turned her life around: she is much better and has a job she loves. Much of the credit for this success she attributes to the confidence and sense of purpose she gained by volunteering to help other people.