A new director has been appointed to head the adult social care and community services in Dorset. Debbie Ward, currently corporate director of housing and community care at Reading Borough Council, has been appointed as Dorset County Council’s director for adult and community services.

Preventing patients from leaving psychiatric wards without staff agreement could avoid up to 50 suicide deaths every year, say University of Manchester researchers.

A 19-year-old man has been given an indeterminate jail sentence for the kidnap and rape of an 86-year-old woman in a Bradford care home.

PLANS to close four care homes to make way for a multi-million pound development received the backing of Cumbria’s top councillors.

A major new Alzheimer’s Research Trust commissioned University of Oxford report, Dementia 2010, reveals that the impact of dementia on the UK’s society and economy is higher than ever. It also shows that dementia research remains severely underfunded compared to other conditions like cancer and heart disease.

Gordon Brown is playing politics over care for vulnerable elderly people, a former Cabinet Secretary told The Times last night.

Employers will no longer be able to ask job applicants about their medical history prior to inviting them for interview, the government has said.