Patients fighting killer chest complaints in Scotland would be better off if they suffered from cancer because services are so neglected, according to a charity. While Scotland has the highest rates of respiratory illness in the UK, it is the only country not developing a strategy to tackle the problem, said the British Lung Foundation Scotland.

This Christmas, a new billboard poster advert will reinforce the message that many in Scotland live with domestic abuse, as the annual awareness-raising campaign begins. This phase builds on the approach taken last year which highlighted that domestic abuse can take many forms including psychological abuse.

Private landlords have a key role to provide good quality affordable housing to tenants. That’s the message from leading housing and homelessness charity, Shelter Scotland, as the charity launched a new Private Renting Project recently. The Private Renting Project has been set up by Shelter to promote good practice in the private rented sector through working with tenants and landlords to raise awareness of their rights and responsibilities.

Student social workers are to be given more consistent and improved guidance on how to protect vulnerable children when they enter practice.

{mosimage}The Key Capabilities in Child Care and Protection have been developed by the Scottish Institute for Excellence in Social Work Education (SIESWE) in collaboration with other key stakeholders and funded by the Scottish Executive.  

The Key Capabilities provide a framework for learning outcomes and competencies in Child Care and Protection across all generic social work degree programmes to support social workers in protecting vulnerable children. The Key Capabilities will further enhance the knowledge base of social work degree students in Scotland, ensuring that all newly qualified social work practitioners will have core knowledge, understanding and skills in child care and protection regardless of whether they work directly with children, or in other settings such as learning disability, mental health or older people’s services.

Councils throughout Scotland have admitted to a range of problems in coping with community service orders. Staff and funding shortages have meant long waiting lists, offenders being sent home and credited with hours off their sentences, and failure to report breaches.

Beti Jones played an important part in the launching of the Social Work Scotland Act of 1968 and establishing the Children’s Hearing system when she became the first Chief Adviser of Social Work to the Scottish Office in 1968.

The rising levels of obesity could bankrupt the NHS if left unchecked, a British Medical Journal report warns. University of Glasgow expert Naveed Sattar said the cost of treating obesity to the health service was 9%.

After a lifetime of “respectability”, a wealthy rural property developer now faces dying in prison after being found guilty yesterday of a sudden spate of sinister crimes against children – including sexual abuse.

A group of MSPs has called for the police to be allowed to search the homes of known sex offenders without a warrant in certain cases. They also want to see sex offenders who fail to co-operate with the authorities made liable for immediate arrest.

Cash-strapped charities face a £4m bill under proposals by the Scottish Executive to make organisations advertise changes to their constitutions. An executive consultation on the reorganisation of charity regulations proposes that organisations with an income of over £250,000 would have to advertise “significant” changes to their charitable aims in the national press, at a cost of up to £5,000 for each advert.