Care services have been joined up by charities to help vulnerable adults with multiple needs. The Making Every Adult Matter coalition said services often struggled to deal with multiple care needs and failings in the system were causing the inefficient use of public funds and social exclusion.

Liverpool is recruiting dozens more child social workers to support the city’s most vulnerable families. The city council is spending an extra £1.7 million a year creating 31 new posts to protect the city’s most at-risk youngsters.

A SOCIAL worker who was sacked by the council faces being struck off if she is found guilty of misconduct at a hearing this week.

The NSPCC has urged the government to better support social workers to identify cases of childhood neglect, and to ensure children in troubled households are properly seen and heard.

Free personal care will be introduced so the frailest can be cared for in their own homes, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pledged.

A care home manager from Lincolnshire has denied wilfully neglecting any of her residents. St Michael’s Care Home in Waddington, near Lincoln, was raided by a team of social workers and detectives in 2007, allegedly after disgruntled staff tipped off the authorities.

A jury has partly blamed the police and two councils for the tragic deaths of a mother and her disabled daughter. The coroner then singled out one of the authorities for criticism, saying it failed to protect a vulnerable family from the anti-social behaviour which haunted their daily lives.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls today stood by his decision to sack Haringey’s social services chief over the Baby P case. As Sharon Shoesmith prepared to challenge Mr Balls in the courts, he told the conference that he acted in the best interests of children in the borough.