The Government’s Community Care Grant has been branded “inefficient and unfair” by a committee of MPs. The £141 million funding pot provides emergency money for benefit claimants with no other access to cash to buy vital domestic items such as beds.

Not only do fewer than 50 per cent of patients with dementia have their mental health assessed when they go into hospital but nearly 25 per cent of hospital beds are taken up by people with dementia, according to a survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

PePLE is a resource for the training and continuing professional development of social workers that can be used with flexibility to fit in with the operational demands of workplaces. The resources can be used to support independent study or existing employer led provision.

A panel of MPs has refuted health secretary Andrew Lansley’s claim that councils will be sufficiently funded to maintain current social services eligibility criteria levels.

Sub-standard social services for children are threatening to damage Birmingham’s reputation, city council leader Mike Whitby has admitted.

Local authorities in England face cuts in jobs and services after “the toughest local government finance settlement in living memory”, councils warned today.

A crisis centre for people with mental health problems in Leeds is facing closure under a proposed reorganisation of council services.

The Social Work Reform Board has today published the first single, national set of professional standards for social workers, in a bid to raise the status of the job in line with other public sector roles such as nursing and teaching.

BASW has expressed its regret that a raft of positive proposals for raising social worker supervision standards have been seriously weakened by a lack of any obligation on employers to adhere to them.

Government spending plans will test the NHS and social services in England to the limit, according to a report by the Commons Health Select Committee.