A strategy to enhance the vital role community hospitals play in Scotland’s changing NHS is being launched today. Developing Community Hospitals sets out a future blueprint for reorganisation of community hospitals and their services, to meet recommendations made in the Executive’s strategy for future healthcare in Scotland, Delivering for Health.

The care home system across Scotland was branded “confused and inconsistent” by an official watchdog yesterday, after it emerged that a council had refused to cover the costs of an elderly resident just because he had owned a house nine years before.

Scotland’s reliance on methadone is failing to tackle the damage wreaked on society by drug abuse, it was claimed yesterday, as new figures showed a massive rise in the use of the heroin substitute.

An elderly man forced to the brink of bankruptcy by his council’s demands for care home costs has forced a rethink of the way individuals’ assets are valued.

More children than ever in Scotland are being prescribed drugs to treat hyperactivity, figures revealed yesterday. Statistics show prescriptions for treating attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increased by almost 16 per cent in 2005-6, with 49,528 handed out by doctors.

A deal over provision for the elderly in the Glencoe and Ballachulish area has been struck, heralding the closure of the 19th-century Glencoe Hospital. It could close its doors as early as April, but it is more likely to shut in the summer.

John Hutton’s threat to reduce or withdraw benefits from a section of the long-term unemployed in a bid to break the cycle of dependency was yesterday condemned by anti-poverty campaigners.

Newly released statistics show a reduction in the reported number of heroin users injecting the drug, and a reduction in the number of addicts sharing needles. Key figures from the information on compendium of drug statistics how that:

A consultation got under way today on plans to modernise and improve services for children in the draft Children’s Services (Scotland) Bill. The move is the latest stage in the Getting it Right for Every Child programme which was developed following a consultation on the future of the children’s hearings system.

A shortage of flu vaccine triggered a drop in people getting vaccinated, according to new NHS statistics. By the end of November, 54% of over-65s had received the flu jag compared to 70% last year. The figures showed that less than a third of those in younger at-risk groups had received the vaccination.