The care system set up to replace axed community hospitals in Wiltshire is continuing to take shape later than originally planned. With county hospitals either to lose their general medical beds or to have the number of beds slashed, neighbourhood teams are drawing up final plans to take over.

Medical practitioners have expressed ‘serious concerns’ over the rights of nurses to prescribe complex medicines after new figures showed a big increase in the practice.

A judge has been accused of giving paedophiles a licence to offend after he refused to send a serial child sex attacker to jail. Michael Porter, 38, used his trusted position as a ministerial servant in the Jehovah’s Witnesses to prey on young boys in Clevedon, Somerset, over a 14-year period.

Gordon Brown has promised “intensive” action to tackle gang violence involving guns and knives. The prime minister said there would be “tougher enforcement” of the law in areas with a gang violence problem.

Housing associations are making full use of their tools and powers in responding to anti-social behaviour (ASB), according to new Housing Corporation research.

The UK needs to boost stroke services quickly – or remain the worst in western Europe, says a leading doctor. Professor Hugh Markus, of London’s St George’s Medical School, said care was poorly organised, the British Medical Journal reported.