A woman has been treated for multiple stab wounds after she was attacked by a seven-year-old boy. The woman, who is in her early 20s, was at a neighbour’s home in Norris Green, Liverpool, when they began arguing.

There is controversy over moves to let university admissions tutors see the educational attainment and occupations of applicants’ parents. The admissions service, Ucas, also says its form for 2008 entry will ask applicants about their ethnicity and whether they have been in council care.

The Department of Health has published new guidance to the NHS on screening new health care workers for tuberculosis (TB), hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. These measures reinforce and strengthen existing guidance and will help further reduce the risk of transmission of TB and blood-borne viruses from health care worker to patient.

The Review of the Independent Living Funds, by consultants Melanie Henwood and Bob Hudson, has been published as part of the Government’s regular review of non-departmental public bodies.

Asylum-seekers were put at risk by the Government’s much-criticised policy of dispersing them around the country, according to a Home Office report which the department refused to publish.

Directors of adult social services have added their weight to concerns about the growing funding shortfalls for services to older people. According to John Dixon, vice president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS):

Recent statistics show that 22,000 people die in Britain each year through alcohol-related illness, and there are 350,000 serious drug users.
Increasingly, the answer for many is costly rehab in a private clinic, or NHS treatment which costs the State millions.
But a new book argues that addiction is not a medical condition which can be cured, but simply a question of moral weakness.
So is it right? Here, two former broadsheet newspaper editors – who both admit to having addictions – take up the cudgels.