Immigration rule changes that have left 49,000 highly skilled migrants who have settled in Britain facing the possibility of deportation are “unfair and unlawful” and should be dropped immediately, according to a report from MPs and peers published today.

The future of the computer system that is supposed to keep track of 300,000 offenders a year who are in prison or on probation is in doubt after ministers halted the programme this week. The moratorium follows an admission that the original £234m costing “proved to be optimistic”.

Michael Leadbetter and David Prince have been appointed as new members to the General Social Care Council (GSCC). Mr Michael Leadbetter is a former Director of Social Services, a consultant in Children’s and Adult Care Services and has been  Chair of the Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) since April 2007.

Over 200 heart surgeons have made their survival rates public, more than twice as many as when the publication scheme launched last year. Some 70% of UK surgeons now put their results on the Healthcare Commission watchdog website where they can be accessed by patients-to-be.

A simple vitamin deficiency may be the cause of many of the side effects of diabetes, a study suggests. Researchers found people with the disease expelled thiamine – vitamin B1 – from their bodies at 15 times the normal rate in a study of 94 people.

According to research by the Daycare Trust, Black and ethnic minority families prefer to use group childcare, seeing it as safer, higher quality and more education based.

The Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) is urging employers, individuals and stakeholders to grab the chance to get involved in the last stages of consultation to explore if the priorities identified in its Sector Skills Agreement are the right ones.

Sure Start children’s centres, early years education and childcare in England have been given a £4bn cash injection from the Government. The money, which will help the Government meet its

A hospital trust is to face scrutiny from an independent panel after vowing to scrap services for children and new mothers. The Horton General Hospital in Banbury plans to downgrade a 24hr children’s ward to a day centre, close a special care baby unit and use midwives rather than consultants to run its maternity unit.

About 600,000 people afflicted by dementia are being let down by the NHS and local authority social services, a health minister admitted yesterday. Ivan Lewis, minister for care services, said the disease “strikes fear into the hearts of all of us”.

{mosimage}The number of sufferers is set to double over the next 30 years as more people survive into their 80s and 90s. Mr Lewis promised a new strategy to improve dementia services by next summer to increase awareness of the disease, provide earlier diagnosis and better treatment.

The high court will rule on Friday on a challenge to a decision by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence that those suffering from moderate dementia should not have access to a range of drugs on the NHS.

But Mr Lewis said the row over medication was not the main issue. “We know too many families feel the current NHS and social care systems are not meeting their needs. The current system is failing too many dementia sufferers and their carers,” he said when announcing the strategy at St Charles hospital in North Kensington, London.