A NEW forum that will help health and care professionals in Shetland to find out what the public wants is being launched early next month.

A new integration unit for female prisoners has been opened at Porterfield Prison in Inverness.

The top social work job in the Highlands has been filled following the departure of the last officer to hold the post. Harriet Dempster, 58, is to take early retirement from her role as social work director of Highland Council at the end of next month.

Childhood physical abuse is associated with significantly elevated rates of heart disease in adulthood, according to new findings by University of Toronto researchers, published in this month’s issue of the journal Child Abuse & Neglect.

A former chief nursing officer for Scotland criticised a care home where 14 elderly residents died in a blaze for its complacent attitude towards safety, a fatal accident inquiry has heard.

A joke-generating computer programme created to help children with disabilities develop language skills has now been launched online.

Volunteer Development Scotland proposes a panel to collect evidence of mistreatment and abuse of volunteers.

Scottish adults buy a quarter more alcohol than the rest of Britain, according to an NHS study. The extra intake equated to about two more pints of beer or two glasses of wine a week, compared to other Britons.

A student described by prosecutors as one of Scotland’s most dangerous sexual predators has been given a lifelong restriction order.

Concerns over the decision by the NSPCC to break with more than 100 years of convention and look to move into Scotland have come under fresh scrutiny from one of the Scottish charitable sector’s most respected figures.