Families caring for disabled children are to receive £340m to help improve their lives, Economic Secretary Ed Balls has announced. {mosimage}Over the next three years, money will be spent on

The NHS is probably using too many expensive treatments, according to health economists and managers. New drugs are generally only used if they cost under £30,000 for each year of good health they provide.

Almost one million children are trapped in overcrowded living conditions in England, a housing charity warned. Shelter said Government figures showed 955,000 youngsters are living in “cramped, squalid” housing, a rise of 50,000 on three years ago.

{mosimage}The charity is calling on the Government to update current legislation on overcrowding, which does not take into account infants under one year old and in which living rooms and even kitchens can count as bedrooms. Changing the legal definition of overcrowding dating back to 1935, which also counts children between one and 10 as “half a person”, would begin to tackle the crisis, Shelter said. Overcrowding can cause depression, ill-health, lack of sleep and social isolation, while the lack of space makes it difficult for children to study, play and develop normally, the charity said. The Housing Act 2004 set out powers to update the statutory definition of overcrowding, but it has still not been changed.

Shelter has launched a viral advertising campaign online to highlight the issue and urge the Government to take action. It features a mock news broadcast of a politician on the campaign trail posing with a baby and then throwing it into the crowd. It is voiced by Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow and directed by The Thick of It writer and director Armando Iannucci.

A U-turn has cleared the way for scientists to create hybrid animal-human embryos for stem cell research. The government move followed a White Paper proposal banning the hybrids that attracted criticism from scientists, charities, patient groups and MPs.

The NHS in England could save more than £300m a year by being more efficient when prescribing drugs, the government spending watchdog says. GPs could make more use of cheaper, non-brand versions of the most common prescription drugs, without harming care, the National Audit Office said.

A growing gap between the earnings of Britain’s richest and poorest has been seized on by critics of Prime Minister-in-waiting Gordon Brown as proof Labour has failed to make the country “fairer”.

More young women who are diagnosed with breast cancer could be spared painful doses of chemotherapy after scientists proved that a readily available drug offers an equally effective treatment.

A national strategy is needed to help support the 100,000 children who run away from home every year, the Children’s Society has said. It is calling for a network of crisis accommodation, and measures to help tackle children’s problems at home.