Almost half of all care homes in Scotland do not meet national standards on eating, drinking and nutrition, leaving vulnerable, elderly residents at risk of weight loss and dehydration, according to a new report.

ALMOST 150 middle-management jobs are set to be axed as part of a major cost-cutting initiative being considered by South Lanarkshire Council.

The Highlands’ social work chief has appealed to councillors to “trust” her department to overcome a £3.4million budget crisis without jeopardising its services for the region’s most vulnerable.

Teachers have borne the brunt of job cuts in the Scottish public sector, while the number of civil servants continues to rise, new unemployment figures reveal.

Aberdeen City Council’s Social Care and Wellbeing service will hold a special recruitment and careers day next week. The event will go ahead on Monday 21 September, 11–3pm, at Cowdray Hall next to the Art Gallery, with staff from a wide variety of teams in the service on hand to talk about their jobs and tell people how to find out more about working in the profession.

The kirk in Caithness has taken up cudgels on behalf of elderly people in the Highlands who need residential care. Community care managers in Highland Council have been instructed to make supported placements in care homes run by the local authority, and not those in the independent sector.