Officials at York Hospital have written to nearly 600 patients after a member of their healthcare staff was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The unnamed woman has been ill since last September, but the disease has only just been diagnosed.

The health divide between the most affluent and the worst off in society increases in later life, finds a study published on bmj.com. This has important implications for government policies to tackle health inequalities.

The responsibility and resources for public health and tackling health inequalities should lie with local councils rather than with the NHS, argues an expert in this week’s BMJ. Professor Tim Blackman of Durham University says that partnerships between local government and the NHS would then become a true meeting of the two sides of health prevention and treatment.

The Church of England has been accused of covering up child sex abuse carried out by a former choirmaster. Peter Halliday will be sentenced after pleading guilty to sexually abusing boys in Hampshire in the late 1980s.

{mosimage}BBC News has learned he admitted to the offences 17 years ago but left the Church quietly on condition he had no more contact with children.

The bishop who dealt with the case told BBC News it would have been dealt with differently if it had happened today.

In 1990 a young chorister at St Peter’s Church, Farnborough, told his parents his choirmaster had abused him repeatedly during a period of several years, and he was not the only victim.

His parents told the vicar, who consulted the bishop – but rather than call the police the churchmen advised Halliday he should leave quietly and agree to have no more contact with young children. One of the boys Halliday abused, who was 10 years old at the time, told BBC News: “It was both when I was alone with him and there were others there.

Nominations are open for one of the most prestigious events on the national social care calendar. Public, independent and voluntary sectors across the land are being invited to submit nominations for the 2007 Skills for Care Accolades celebrating the best practice in developing a high quality social care workforce.