The falling cost of cocaine has been blamed for a rise in the number of adults taking illegal drugs. Official figures have revealed that while child drug use has fallen, adult use has risen slightly.

The transfer of Wales’ health advice and information service into the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust heralds a new approach to healthcare in this country. NHS Direct Wales has been merged with the ambulance trust as part of a move to ensure that patients are referred to the most appropriate services.

A leading researcher has called for a revolution in how bipolar disorder is diagnosed and treated. Professor Nick Craddock of Cardiff University believes that diagnosis and treatment should be based on a better understanding of the genetic, biological and psychological factors that determine a person’s susceptibility to the illness.

Health chiefs have been accused of hiding the true extent of superbugs striking hospital patients across Wales. A leading support group which helps MRSA patients claims hospitals are discharging patients early in a desperate bid to keep official killer infection rates under wraps.

Bosses of a leading Welsh charity which helps children in Africa have admitted backing plans to import thousands of tonnes of a controversial drug into Britain. The Samburu Maasai Wales Aid group is well known for its fundraising to help tribes in northern Kenya.

Former council care workers employed in old people’s homes that were privatised are facing huge cuts in pay this summer. Now the trade union Unison has strongly attacked the Labour-controlled council that hived off the homes five years ago.

A driver blacked out at the wheel in a diabetic attack and killed a district nurse walking on the pavement, a court heard yesterday. Nurse Suzanne Meredith, 54, died instantly and her lecturer husband Julian was seriously injured in the freak crash.

A pensioner once dubbed the “original neighbour from hell” by a judge, plans to appeal against her prison sentence, her daughter said yesterday. Dorothy Evans, 81, was jailed for six months at Cardiff Crown Court on Tuesday for one count of harassment and six breaches of her anti-social behaviour order.

A predatory sex attacker who carried out a horrifying assault on a three-year-old girl was jailed indefinitely today. Darren Rose, 21, of Duke Street, Abertillery, South Wales, was caught by police when his DNA matched that under the fingernails of a woman who scratched his face when he attacked her the previous night.

A babysitter has been jailed at Cardiff Crown Court for sexually assaulting a three-year-old in his care and an attack on a woman the night before. Darren Rose, 21, of Abertillery, Blaenau Gwent, admitted the separate attacks on the woman and the toddler.