The national report which has painted a damning picture of services for people with learning disabilities in NHS care homes and a London hospital “reinforces, yet again, the continued need for mandatory training and development — and a national audit of care homes.”
Read More
The Scottish Executive is to cut funding to a project dealing with cocaine addiction, BBC Scotland has learned. The scheme in Aberdeen is one of only two of its kind north of the border. A working party is to be set up to recommend how to tackle the growing problem. A similar investigation was ordered five years ago.
Read More
Parents of children with special needs have mounted a campaign for improved therapy services in the north-east. They want a dedicated help centre set up for youngsters with a range of learning, emotional and developmental difficulties such as autism, dyslexia and attention deficit disorder (ADD).
Read More
There have been calls for an inquiry into the crisis facing some mental health patients at Muckamore Abbey in County Antrim. A BBC investigation found people with severe learning disabilities are being kept in hospital as there is no money to care for them in the community.
Read More
The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) Codes of Practice for Social Service Workers and Employers have been translated into British Sign Language (BSL) and are now available to order on DVD. The Codes of Practice set out the standards of conduct and practice that social service workers and employers must adhere to.
Read More
People who didn’t receive their full disability allowance because they were living in residential care are to have the balance restored, according to the minister for social affairs. It is part of the Government package of reforms announced in the last budget.
Read More
Shelter’s free service Advice Online has won the housing and homelessness charity an e-government National Award. Shelter beat finalists including the Commission for Social Care Inspection, The British Library, The Police National Legal Database, The Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission to take the award.
Read More
Poverty is “scarring” British cities, with around half of children in some urban areas living below the breadline. To coincide with a day of action on child poverty, Save the Children has released a list of constituencies with the worst rates of child poverty in the UK.
{mosimage}
Inner city areas top the list – which was compiled using data from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation – with more than half of children in Manchester Central described as living in poverty. Liverpool Riverside and Poplar and Canning Town showed child poverty rates approaching the 50% mark, double the national average.
Colette Marshall, UK director of Save the Children, said: “Despite the boom in affluence, illustrated by ever-rising house prices, these figures show that cities remain the places most scarred by poverty.
“Families are struggling to cope – especially during winter when the weather turns cold and the bills are high and the financial demands on families become unbearable. Without urgent action this year the government will fail to meet its own target to end child poverty by 2020.”
Read More
Workers who keep their jobs following cuts are almost as likely to need treatment for stress as colleagues made redundant, say researchers. University College London researchers, writing in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, said more help should be offered to “survivors”.
Read More
Scientists who recreated “Spanish flu” – the 1918 virus which killed up to 50m people – have witnessed its remarkable killing power first hand. The lungs of infected monkeys were destroyed in just days as their immune systems went into overdrive after a Canadian laboratory rebuilt the virus.
Read More