The Government’s promise that healthy women who choose to can have their babies at home was undermined yesterday by fears of a shortage of midwives and lack of funds. Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, announced that from 2009 all women would be able to choose where they had their baby – in hospital, in a midwife-led unit or at home.

Screening people for Clostridium difficile before they are admitted to hospital may be one way to help control rising rates of infection, says a doctor in today’s BMJ.

A Church of England Bishop will give evidence at an employment tribunal in which he is accused of unlawfully discriminating against a gay man. The Bishop of Hereford, the Rt Rev Anthony Priddis, is alleged to have refused to give John Reaney of North Wales a position at his diocese because of his sexuality.

Trailblazing local social enterprise schemes will tomorrow discover their share of £1.4 million of national funding, made available by Care Services Minister Ivan Lewis.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has begun a probe into the UK supply of medicines, after changes at the world’s biggest pharmaceutical firm, Pfizer. Earlier this month, Pfizer began selling its prescription drugs through just one medical wholesaler, Unichem.

A man has been arrested and placed in the care of mental health services following a siege in Bentley near Doncaster. Officers were called to a house in New Street by neighbours after a 26-year-old man barricaded himself in.

More than half of all cancer patients are having to wait longer than the Government says is acceptable for life-saving radiotherapy treatment, it was disclosed last night.