Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (the DDA) a person has a disability if: “…he has a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term effect on his ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.”

More than £4.5 million has been awarded to Peabody Trust from the Big Lottery Fund (BIG) to deliver projects that will improve people’s quality of life and well-being across London’s most deprived communities.

The Conservatives are calling for a major shake-up of special needs education in England. A plan the party is considering would remove the assessment of special needs from local councils, which also fund the extra help schools give pupils.

Rogue gangmasters are supplying migrant workers to look after the elderly in care homes in an attempt to avoid controls on the provision of labourers to farms and packing warehouses, according to trade unions and MPs.

{mosimage}Cowboy operators are also providing foreign labour for construction sites and the cleaning industry, and overseas waiting and cleaning staff for hotels and restaurants.

Two years after the creation of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA), which regulates all labour provision in the fresh food and farming sector, trade unions are gathering evidence that a number of unscrupulous gangmasters have moved into new sectors rather than comply with the law.

The authority was set up after the outcry over the deaths of 23 Chinese cockle-pickers at Morecambe Bay in February 2004 and concerns that gangmasters were unfairly treating migrants employed as pickers and packers of fresh produce. Now some ministers and MPs believe that its remit should be extended to regulate the provision of labour to care homes, the construction and hospitality industry.

There is concern about the alleged abuse of workers forced to pay out unreasonable amounts for accommodation, transport to work and even uniform from their pay. But there are also worries over health and safety.

Although the Government wants to welcome skilled workers from other countries, there is concern that some migrant workers charged with looking after the elderly may not be qualified to do so and that lives could be endangered. There is also concern about their proficiency in English and their ability to communicate with residents.

British doctors are to rebel against high prices set by pharmaceutical companies for their products by giving patients a cheap but unlicensed drug that prevents blindness, the Guardian has learned.

Every patient will have their own room and bathroom at a new NHS hospital in a drive to stop the spread of superbugs.