A woman of 103 has been served with an eviction notice by a nursing home because she can’t afford to pay an extra £100 a week. Esme Collins requires round-the-clock nursing but could be removed from her home within 28 days. Her 84-year-old daughter claims she is being used as a pawn by the home in its battle for funding from the local authority.

{mosimage}Esme Simpson wept as she spoke of fears that her mother would not survive the upheaval of being shunted to another home.

“Moving her will be a death sentence,” she said.”She is an old lady who has worked hard all her life and never claimed a penny off the state. She should be allowed a bit of dignity in her final few years.”

Mrs Collins, a great-great-grandmother who retired when she was 75 to become a volunteer for ‘meals on wheels’, moved into Abbeymoor nursing home in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, due to illness.

She suffers from severe osteoporosis and is bed-ridden. Yet officials at the county council claim her needs do not meet the criteria set down for financial support. As a result, the home called her daughter in for a meeting and said they had no alternative but to increase her weekly fees to cover the additional cost for her care.

“I don’t understand where they draw the line,” said Mrs Simpson, who lives nearby and visits her mother daily. “How much worse does she have to be? She has broken just about every bone in her body. They don’t even bother repairing the fractures any more because her bones are like chalk.”

Fears that filthy water from Britain’s floods could trigger a health crisis are largely unfounded, experts say. Flood water may contain dangerous bacteria like cholera from mixing with raw human sewage, but this is unlikely to trigger disease outbreaks, they say.

The biggest ever campaign in England to combat the stigma of mental illness has been launched. The Big Lottery Fund is pumping £16m into a campaign which will include anti-stigma television advertisements. Comic Relief is providing £2m.

People with mental health problems are having to wait up to three-and-a-half years for psychological therapy. Latest figures from Derbyshire Mental Health Trust show there are 428 patients waiting up to 186 weeks for counselling in Derby and south Derbyshire.

Racist attitudes by teachers may be condemning black schoolchildren to an inferior education, according to a Government backed study. Black Caribbean pupils are more likely to be expelled from school and less likely to be put in the top set compared to white British children, it said.

Children’s surgery in England and Wales is being undermined by lack of funding and training, warn medics. The Royal College of Surgeons says “strong action” is needed to make sure routine operations can be done locally.

By 2050, it’s predicted that four times as many people will need social care as today*, which will result in a major resourcing crisis for the care sector.

One in ten children in the UK has a mental disorder, according to Office of National Statistics figures. The figures come as the number of prescriptions for depression has quadrupled among under-16s in the past ten years, with over half a million in the last year.

Cannabis users are 40% more likely than non-users to suffer a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia, say UK experts. Writing in the Lancet, a team led by Dr Stanley Zammit from Bristol and Cardiff Universities said young people needed to be made aware of the dangers.

Six disabled people have been arrested in connection with what is believed to be the widespread abuse of a scheme to help wheelchair-users buy cars.