A Cumbrian nursing home under investigation by social services has been told by independent inspectors that it is not looking after its elderly residents properly.

UNDER-pressure Birmingham social workers are struggling to cope with a record 27,000 cases of alleged child abuse.

LAST week’s revelations that child protection services failed to stop a boy being abused and neglected for 12 years show that an official inquiry is needed into the management of Health and Social Services, says Senator Alan Breckon.

Records from the city council’s social services department have been found on an unencrypted USB stick in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. The stick was handed in by an IT consultant to the local newspaper, the Sentinel, on Friday, after he apparently found it lying on the pavement.

Independent social workers (ISWs) are calling on the government to drop plans to slash their court fees in half, claiming that children’s lives will be put in danger.  Their fees for acting as expert witnesses in cases involving vulnerable children will be capped at Cafcass rates from October – £33 an hour in London and £30 outside.