Mental health patients are to attend special sessions aimed at preventing them from committing crimes. Around 500 violent crimes are carried out by people with mental health problems in Lincolnshire each year.

Earlier this year the Government gave Cornwall County Council a £740,000 grant to allocate to care homes in the county to improve the quality of life and dignity of the residents.

A woman fighting to stop her unborn baby being taken from her at birth is considering having an abortion because she does not want her child to go into care.

A Malawian social worker has been given the go-ahead to travel to London and assess Madonna’s suitability to adopt a child from the African country. Penstone Kilembe said the government had reversed an earlier decision, allowing him to visit the pop star.

Senior social workers have warned that a database designed to protect children in England could be exploited by paedophiles, a newspaper has reported.

{mosimage}The £224m Contact Point System will contain details of the 11m children in the country. It goes live next year.

But the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) has outlined “significant” concerns, The Times said.

However, the Department for Children, Schools and Families insisted the system would be secure.

The system was set up after the official inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie concluded the eight-year-old’s murder could have been prevented if there had been better communication between the professionals involved.

However, The Times said the ADCS had written to Christine Goodfellow, who is in charge of Contact Point, expressing concerns about the policing and vetting arrangements.

Richard Stiff, the chairman of the ADCS information systems and technology policy committee, said it “may allow a situation where an abuser could be able to access Contact Point for illegitimate purposes with limited fear of any repercussions”.

Thousands of crime suspects are to be housed in flats and houses in cities around England and Wales while awaiting trial, in an emergency measure to ease prison overcrowding.

The number of child murders in England and Wales has halved in the last decade, according to an analysis of official figures.

Three people were today charged with the murder of a 23-year-old man with learning difficulties after a street attack.

The care system set up to replace axed community hospitals in Wiltshire is continuing to take shape later than originally planned. With county hospitals either to lose their general medical beds or to have the number of beds slashed, neighbourhood teams are drawing up final plans to take over.

Medical practitioners have expressed ‘serious concerns’ over the rights of nurses to prescribe complex medicines after new figures showed a big increase in the practice.