NHS Strike Looms As Workers Ballot Over Pay Award
The possibility of a national strike across the NHS will move one step closer today when Unison health workers ballot for industrial action at their annual health conference in Brighton.
Read MoreThe possibility of a national strike across the NHS will move one step closer today when Unison health workers ballot for industrial action at their annual health conference in Brighton.
Read MoreA cultural change is needed in the way old people in care are treated, a committee of MPs and peers was told. People are being put into care homes that do not meet their needs and given the wrong drugs without their consent, the joint Human Rights Committee heard.
{mosimage}“We are seeing too many instances where it is accepted practice for old people to be treated in a low level way,” said charity boss Gary Fitzgerald. The committee is examining the rights of old people in hospitals and homes. It heard that people were being given the wrong medication – or medication was being used as a form of “chemical restraint” for dementia sufferers – which then became part of their routine care. There was a “definite link” between over-medication and homes that were short staffed.
Mr Fitzgerald, chief executive of Action on Elder Abuse, said he had heard of a case where an elderly person was given someone else’s medication to “keep them quiet”. He said he had sympathy with many care providers which did an excellent job but struggled with lack of resources.
Read MoreOne in 30 foetuses aborted for medical reasons is born alive, a 10-year study at 20 UK hospitals has found. Most of these babies with disabilities were born between 20 and 24 weeks of pregnancy and all lived for no more than a few hours.
Read MoreA grief counselling programme for families bereaved by suicide does not reduce grief or depression, but may help to prevent perceptions of blame among close relatives and spouses, finds a study published on bmj.com.
Read MoreDecisions about building casinos in the UK have not given enough weight to the potential health effects, argue two doctors in this week’s BMJ. In March the House of Lords threw out government proposals to build the UK’s first Las Vegas-style super casino in Manchester and build 16 other casinos around the country.
Read MoreEvery 15 minutes someone dies as a direct result of physical inactivity. Yet just 30 minutes of activity a day will help stave off heart disease and other illnesses, the British Heart Foundation says today as it launches a new poster campaign.
Read MoreDirectors Of Adult social services have told MPs that greater attention needs to be paid to the human rights of older people in both health and social care settings. Older people themselves might often be unaware that infringements are taking place.
Read MoreCumbria County Council has drawn up secret plans to close old folks’ homes in Whitehaven, Workington, Maryport, Cleator Moor, Egremont and Aspatria. They are in a draft business plan for Cumbria Care, the council’s in-house residential and home-care provider, marked “confidential”.
Read MoreA woman who punished three children in her care by ramming sticks down their throats and making them eat their own vomit has been jailed for 14 years. Eunice Spry, 62, from Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire, was convicted at Bristol Crown Court last month, of 26 charges of abuse spanning 19 years.
{mosimage}The prosecution said Spry’s behaviour was “horrifying” and “sadistic”. Spry had denied all the charges, which related to offences in Gloucestershire between 1986 and 2005. Spry, who was the legal parent of the three children, was arrested when police raided her home in February 2005. She was found guilty of a range of charges from unlawful wounding, cruelty to a person under 16, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, perverting the course of justice and witness intimidation.
Judge Simon Darwall-Smith told Spry that this was the worst case he had come across in 40 years in law. He told her: “Frankly, it’s difficult for anyone to understand how any human being could have even contemplated what you did, let alone with the regularity and premeditation you employed.”
The slight figure in the dock who had raised some of her children in Eckington, near Pershore, Worcestershire, looked on impassively as the judge sentenced her to 14 years.
Read MoreA care assistant who killed himself by lying down in front of a high-speed train was being investigated by the police and had just been sacked from his job after admitting “serious” allegations, an inquest has heard.
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