Health services in the West have suffered from a £770 million shortfall after years of government under-funding.

Unnecessary child protection checks and other bureaucratic barriers are wasting the potential of volunteers in public services, Gordon Brown’s volunteering tsar, Lady Neuberger, will say today.

The Liberal Democrat peer, brought in by the prime minister when he took office to be the government’s volunteering champion, will urge hospitals and other providers to break down their resistance to using volunteers.

In the first of a series of reports, on health and social care services, Neuberger says that too often organisations are demanding Criminal Records Bureau checks on all potential helpers.

“This is clearly unnecessary. Checks should only be undertaken where a volunteer might spend time alone with young people or vulnerable adults. Managers need to show some common sense and stop, for example, requiring CRB checks for people working on hospital radio stations,” the report says.

“Insurance and other legal considerations do seem to have created a level of risk-aversion throughout all management levels in health and social care services.”

Neuberger, a health spokeswoman in the Lords, was one of two senior Lib Dem peers brought in as so-called goats (as in Government of All the Talents) by Brown, along with Lord Lester, the lawyer who advises on constitutional reform.

A Charity that helps people with learning difficulties is having to cut some of its services because of a lack of funds.

The deputy manager of a Derby care home stole nearly £5,000 by raiding the bank accounts of three elderly and disabled residents.

Police searching a Jersey care home where it is claimed children were raped and flogged in underground chambers are expecting to break into a second bricked-up cellar this week.

South Gloucestershire Council is celebrating after it was awarded a national accolade for the way it helps children and young people in care.

Relatives of elderly people in care homes under threat of closure have enlisted the help of a top lawyer.

Leading independent schools are hiding their special needs provision to avoid being swamped and protect their league table ratings, according to an influential guide.

Rita Jermaine is 75, virtually blind and can barely walk but has been told she cannot move into a council nursing home because she smokes.

The government’s new programme of personalised public services could see NHS patients being given a budget to buy their own care and parents the money to hire their own teachers.