A nurse was kicked out of the profession yesterday after she urged an assistant to put a brown paper bag over a dementia patient’s head and then took a photo with her mobile phone.

A serial sex attacker who remained free to terrorise women for four years because of a police DNA blunder was jailed for life yesterday.

Almost 35,000 single parents have been waiting more than five years for the Child Support Agency to resolve their claims, it has emerged. {mosimage}New government figures underline the extent of

About 100 children a month are being rescued from physical and sexual abuse after contacting specialist police officers online, The Times has learnt.

An elderly resident whose treatment sparked a police investigation into a care home in Bournemouth has died.

A plymouth carer has been presented with an award in recognition of her outstanding work with older people.

A former head teacher, his brother and a care worker have been convicted of cruelty against children at a special school between 1975 and 1988.

Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, has stepped in to block a £250,000 pay-off to the hospital boss at the centre of Britain’s worst superbug outbreak.

Nearly a million more people will benefit from cognitive behavioural therapy after an extra £170 million was pledged yesterday by Alan Johnson.

{mosimage}It is a “talking therapy” that guides people with conditions such as depression and anxiety into changing the way they feel about themselves.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommends it as a first-line treatment, especially for adolescents.

But it has not been widely available because of a shortage of money. The additional funding will go towards an expansion of mental health therapies to ensure that such treatments are available UK-wide.

Studies have shown that psychological therapies can be as effective as drugs in tackling common mental health problems, and are often more successful in the longer term.

As many as six million UK working age adults suffer from depression or anxiety at any one time, resulting in a estimated 91 million working days lost every year. This equates to an estimated annual economic cost, in sick leave, lost jobs and reduced output, of £12 billion.

The new money, which will be spent over the next four years, will treat 900,000 more people for depression and anxiety and provide an additional 3,600 trained therapists.

More than 21,000 girls under 15 in England and Wales are estimated to be at serious risk of being forced into genital mutilation and a further 11,000 over-eights are highly likely already to have been subjected to the practice, according to research.