Emergency services have been called to deal with an incident at an immigration detention centre in Oxfordshire. Thames Valley Police said 35 officers were dealing with an emergency at Campsfield detention centre near Kidlington.
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One of Scotland’s biggest unions has called on local authorities to pay charities full costs for their services to the public sector. The Edinburgh branch of the TGWU, which has almost 1000 members in the voluntary sector, met councillors to relay growing concerns about financial problems.
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New figures show there were over 100 child abduction cases to and from Ireland last year, representing an all time high. The Department of Justice’s Child Abduction Unit processed a total of 170 cases in 2006.
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The government ‘thoroughly mishandled’ the introduction of the new system for out-of-hours health care in England, a group of MPs has said.
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Health Minister, Paul Goggins has welcomed O2’s announcement that calls to the pilot suicide prevention helpline will be free of charge from now on.
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Almost half of children whose mothers smoke have asked them to quit, a survey has found. The poll of 500 smoking mothers also found two-thirds felt guilty about spending money on cigarettes which could be used for their children.
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What are the side effects of cancer? Weight loss, nausea, tiredness. These are all recognisable to any of us who have been affected by cancer. But poverty, homelessness, bankruptcy, these ‘side effects’ are less frequently in the headlines.
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The health service ombudsman, Ann Abraham, last night found the government guilty of maladministration for failing to organise proper compensation for thousands of vulnerable people who were unlawfully charged for NHS care.
{mosimage}She said the Department of Health gave the wrong advice to NHS trusts about how to make amends to people who were obliged to sell their homes to pay for a nursing home place that should have been free.
As a result there was a postcode lottery, with some older and disabled people getting a fair deal and others denied appropriate reimbursement.
Ms Abraham said four years ago that more than 11,000 people were improperly denied free care when they were moved from long-stay beds in NHS hospitals into nursing homes. The mistake was made by local authorities, but she made NHS trusts responsible for paying compensation.
The government forecast that it would cost £180m. In a follow-up report today, the ombudsman said the department gave trusts flawed advice that took no account of the need to compensate victims for distress.
Officials also said interest should be calculated using the retail price index when they should have used the more generous county court judgment debt rate. Ms Abraham told the department to issue fresh guidance.
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Fears have been expressed that the creation of a new “super agency” covering all equality issues could result in Welsh input being downgraded.
In October, the Commission for Equality and Human Rights will be launched, taking over from three existing bodies – the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Commission for Racial Equality and the Disability Rights Commission.
Government statistics published today show that the UK’s NHS workforce fell by 11,000 in the fourth quarter of 2006. Commenting on the figures, BMA Chairman Mr James Johnson, says:
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