In an ideal world, there would be no children living away from the security and love of a family. This is far from an ideal world, however, and 4,000 children in England are waiting for homes. As we often hear, there are ­endless couples wanting to adopt.

The nurse at the centre of the Butleigh care home murder enquiry has appeared in court, charged with murdering three elderly residents at the care home she ran with her husband.

A man shot dead by police in a quiet country village was depressed at the thought of his sick wife being placed in a nursing home, a close friend said today.

THERE were no bed-blocking patients in Edinburgh for the first time ever last month, it has emerged. The city council said that no patient waited longer than three days to be released from hospital after their recovery during April.

Better liaison between neighbourhood police teams and those with mental health problems and scrapping the use of police custody as a place of safety are among the recommendations made to police in Lord Keith Bradley’s report on policing those with disabilities in the criminal justice system.

A relentless recruitment campaign to attract people from all disciplines into social care and promote the “really good” career paths available is needed urgently if the UK is to deliver a step-change in child protection.

Gaynor Arnold is an author and a social worker. As government plans to boost social services recruitment are dismissed as inadequate, she defends a job that has been openly scorned and reviled.

Children may be being put at risk because nurses carrying out assessments on mothers with mental illnesses do not have enough training, an expert says.