Highland Council have given the go-ahead for a new multi-million pound care home in Grantown – ending nearly 18 months of uncertainty for elderly residents of the town’s Grant House and their families.

A series of failings in social work and care services was discovered by a report into an Aberdeen care home where a woman was sexually assaulted, it has emerged. The report, which was released by the North East of Scotland Child Protection Committee (NESCPC), found the attack in 2005 – and others – could have been prevented.

A hospital doctor gave a massive dose of a paralysing drug to two terminally ill babies, hastening their deaths, medical watchdogs have been told. Consultant neonatologist Michael Munro gave 23 times the normal dose of muscle relaxant Pancuronium to the children at Aberdeen Maternity Hospital.

A Scottish musician who trawled violent pornographic websites was today found guilty of murdering a special needs teacher to act out a perverted fantasy. Graham Coutts, 39, strangled Jane Longhurst with a pair of tights after forcing her into sex, the Old Bailey heard.

Scots of South Asian descent are significantly more likely to suffer a heart attack then the rest of the population, according to new research. Scientists at Edinburgh university found that Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan women and their descendents are at 80% higher risk of cardiac arrest.

A union last night warned of strike chaos hitting Scotland’s biggest social work department from next week in a row about pay and job regrading involving 600 social care workers.

{mosimage}They will begin an indefinite work to rule from Monday after a ballot returned 97% of workers in support.

Social work staff and unions say a strike is inevitable because they claim David Comley, Glasgow council’s director of social work, who is about to leave his £110,000-plus-a-year post, has threatened that anyone refusing tasks will be sent home, in breach of contract.

Last night union officials warned if anybody was suspended for a breach of contract, staff would walk out.

{mosimage}According to Unison, the public services union, the city council’s workforce pay and benefits review has cut at least £1000 off social care workers’ pay with some staff losing £5000.

The average social care worker, who would assess and support care packages, currently gets paid between £18,000 to £25,000. If care workers strike, union leaders believe the vast majority of the 5000 people who work in Glasgow City Council’s social work department will support their action and will not cross any picket line.

SCOTLAND is trailing near the bottom of an international league table measuring the quality of life for young people, with one of the worst records on poverty and teenage pregnancy, a damning report said today.

SOME pensioners may be missing out on free care because councils are not all working to the same standards when dealing with the elderly.

The suspected al-Qa’eda terrorists behind the attempted car bomb attacks on Britain were almost all foreign doctors working in the NHS, it can be disclosed today. In a development that will raise questions over the vetting procedures for medics from abroad, it emerged that five of the seven suspects held by police are young Middle Eastern men employed at British hospitals.

{mosimage}One is Mohammed Asha, a “brilliant” neurosurgeon from Jordan. Another being questioned over both the London and Glasgow attacks is Bilal Abdulla, an Iraqi junior doctor who was a passenger in the car that rammed Glasgow airport.

The driver of the Jeep Cherokee -who suffered 90 per cent burns after setting himself on fire in the attack – is said to be a locum doctor working at the hospital where he is now being treated.

Two of his colleagues at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley, Renfrewshire, were also arrested yesterday and another junior doctor is understood to have been the man police arrested in Liverpool.

Disclosures of the suspected terrorists’ backgrounds – which came as the hunt for any others who may have been connected to the terrorist incidents continued – surprised detectives and the intelligence services.

Five men have been arrested, while a sixth, the Jeep driver, is under police guard in hospital. He was operated on yesterday but doctors said his chances of survival were slim. He has not been officially arrested because detectives are waiting for him to recover and do not want to trigger the 28-day maximum time limit for detaining him as a terrorism suspect.
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The seventh person arrested is Dr Asha’s wife. Last night Scotland Yard said an eighth person was arrested at an undisclosed location, believed to be in Britain, in connection with the London and Glasgow attacks. Meanwhile inquiries were also taking place overseas and there were reports of another arrest overseas.

42 young people throughout Scotland have been awarded Participatory Democracy certificates today by Volunteer Development Scotland (VDS) and the BIG Lottery Fund. The certificates acknowledge the work these young people contributed in local youth panels set up to help distribute the lottery’s Young People’s Fund.