The proportion of funds invested in mental health services has fallen over the past six years according to research commissioned by the Scottish Parliament’s Health Committee.

A £10 million new wave of preventative care programmes is to go live across Scotland later this year, it has been announced. Services will be developed in south Glasgow, Aberdeen, Fife, North and East Ayrshire, Inverclyde and West Dunbartonshire.

Scottish police forces are to be given more powers to tackle the problem of anti-social behaviour. Ministers are to announce that officers will be able to issue on-the-spot fines for a number of crimes, including drunkenness and vandalism.

Staff at a Scottish hospital are testing out a simple idea to reduce the number of mistakes made when making up patients’ drugs. Nurses in charge of the drugs round at Gartnavel hospital in Glasgow wear red tabards when dispensing drugs.

A frantic hunt for a Selkirk pensioner’s missing wheelchair ended when social work chiefs admitted they had taken it from outside his home. Retired teacher Harry Anderson, who has been paralysed from the chest down since contracting polio 40 years ago, had contacted Scottish Borders Council in January to ask them to collect a shower chair that he no longer needed.

Shelter Scotland has launched its new ‘It’s time to get a move in’ campaign to secure investment for 30,000 affordable rented homes for 2012. Shelter Scotland, along with other housing organisations, is calling on the Scottish Executive to fund 30,000 homes over three years (2008-11), through this year’s comprehensive spending review.

The mother of Misbah Rana has told how she gave up her custody fight because she feared the legal battle could bring on a nervous breakdown. Louise Campbell told a BBC programme it was difficult to allow her daughter, also known as Molly Campbell, to live in Pakistan with father, Sajad Rana.

A blind 98-year-old has had his council home help withdrawn because cash is to be focused on “the most vulnerable and at risk”. George MacDonald, who lives in sheltered housing at Haugh Court, Inverness, was registered blind 15 years ago, had a stroke 12 years ago and has suffered poor health since he was hit by a car in Union Street seven years ago.

Many primary school teachers feel “uncomfortable” about tackling issues such as homosexuality and contraception in the classroom, a study has revealed. Abertay University found that some had “tinkered” with the sex education programme to lessen embarrassment.

Doctors believe Scotland’s biggest city is set to face a shortage of maternity beds as the birth rate continues to defy forecasts of sharp decline. One of Glasgow’s three maternity hospitals, the Queen Mother’s at Yorkhill, is scheduled to close at some point between this year and 2009, leaving the city with capacity to deliver just 12,000 babies a year.