Seven new specialist enforcement teams will tackle poorly performing care services, under new proposals agreed by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI).

{mosimage}The move reflects CSCI’s commitment to improving services and stamping out bad practice wherever we see it. 

While much progress has already been made, there is still more to do. 

Based in each of CSCI’s seven regions, the enforcement teams will be led by highly experienced senior inspectors – called Regulation Managers – supported by specialist inspectors and support staff.

The teams will work closely with CSCI’s lawyers to improve the speed, quality and consistency of enforcement activity in England. 

CSCI will also inform local councils, who purchase services for local residents, about poorly performing care services in their area, and the legally binding ‘requirements to improve’ placed upon services by CSCI inspectors.  

A heroin addict accused of trying to quieten her baby by giving him methadone admitted the child’s manslaughter at a court hearing yesterday.

{mosimage}Gemma Fennelly, 24, changed her plea on the day her retrial over the tragedy in Hartlepool two years ago was due to start, after earlier proceedings were stopped to allow forensic tests on fresh scientific evidence for the defence. She was released on bail by a judge at Teesside crown court, to return for sentencing at the beginning of May for “allowing and/or failing through gross negligence to prevent” 22-month-old Mitchell Bate from taking a lethal dose of the drug.

The child died in September 2005 after collapsing from enough methadone to kill an adult, allegedly built up by successive doses.

More than half of doctors suffer from low morale at work and many blame NHS reforms, a survey suggests. A survey of more than 1,400 doctors found that 69% would not recommend a career in medicine. The same number said morale fell in the last year.

Doctors providing out-of-hours care are being replaced with less qualified staff such as nurses in some areas, a poll suggests. Pulse magazine found 19 out of 50 primary care organisations it surveyed had replaced doctors with cheaper alternatives in some areas.

Council spending cuts could see many elderly and infirm people moved out of the county, and away from their loved ones, the Oxfordshire Care Home Association claims.

Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, yesterday called on websites to meet their moral obligation to stop pupils publishing cruel and obscene images of their teachers.