Children from the age of five should be encouraged to drink wine at home to prevent the toll of alcohol abuse in later life, one of the country’s leading experts on the problem has told Scotland on Sunday. Jack Law, chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland and a member of the Scottish Ministerial Advisory Committee on Alcohol Problems, believes the practice would cut binge drinking among youngsters by taking the mystery out of alcohol.

A two-year-old child has died after contracting the E.coli O157 infection. The girl, from Ballantrae, in South Ayrshire, died at the weekend after being taken to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow. A health board spokeswoman said two children in the Dumfries and Galloway area, who had been in contact with the girl, had also tested positive. A 20-month-old and a child of three were admitted to hospital at the weekend but have since been released.

A pioneering welfare-to-work scheme is proving so successful in getting people off benefit and back into the workplace that yesterday it was decided to up its target for 2010 to 40,000 from 30,000. Glasgow Welfare to Work Forum has the chance of a slice of £5m and inclusion in the government’s new Cities Strategy scheme.It is aimed at allowing local areas to deliver tailormade solutions to getting people back into work rather than being served with rigid diktats from Whitehall.

Diners in Edinburgh will be asked to donate £1 to their restaurant bill in August to help the homeless. The UK charity StreetSmart last night launched its 2006 Edinburgh fundraising campaign. Participating restaurants will accept the donations in the busy month when the city’s eateries are filled with visitors to the festivals. Last year’s campaign drive in August and December raised £18,000. The money is distributed to homeless charities in the city.

A disabled man has been left languishing in hospital nearly nine months after doctors gave him the all-clear – because the council can’t find him a home. Alastair Scott was told he was fit to leave Astley Ainsley Hospital in early November after recuperating there from a broken leg. His sister said she would care for the 47-year-old – who is wheelchair-bound and brain-damaged – but needed somewhere bigger than her two-bedroom flat.

An autistic civil servant was fired by tax office managers after union representatives labelled him a health hazard, a tribunal has heard, writes Craig Brown. Patrick Roberts, 48, was sacked from his job with Customs and Excise when representatives from the LTS union described his behaviour as “a health and safety risk” to his fellow workers.

One in five Scots nurses has been bullied or harassed at work in the past year by a colleague, resulting in staff leaving the professions. Presenting what it says are “shocking” findings, the Royal College of Nursing in Scotland said 21% of nurses have suffered abuse from fellow staff and managers.According to the college, the victimisation has led to a quarter of nurses trying to change jobs, while almost 10% had given up their jobs as a result.The figures are revealed in a report called Breaking Point.

Ministers are proposing to abolish the distinct roles of district nurses and health visitors, leading to fears that thousands of patients will not receive the specialist care they need. Under the plans, the extensive range of titles currently used by more than 8000 NHS nurses who work outwith hospitals would merge into one new “community health” job. But nurses’ leaders are concerned the proposed shake-up will ultimately turn all community nurses into generalists and dilute their specialist skills.

Coca-Cola has admitted that it got it wrong when it used the word ‘psychos’ in an advertising campaign for a new soft drink. Complaints from ‘see me’, the Scottish mental health anti-stigma campaign and supporters of Stigma Stop Watch have resulted in the ad being withdrawn from TV, billboards and newspapers as of today, 24th July 2006.

Cocaine Use among Scots in their late 20s and early 30s has almost doubled in a year, according to a new report that suggests it now appears to be the drug of choice for young professionals. Across all age groups, use of the class A drug increased slightly, but in the 25-29 age group it almost doubled, from 1.4 per cent to 2.7 per cent of the population. In the 30-34 age group there was also a marked jump, from 1.9 per cent to 2.8 per cent.