A hospital department head who threw herself to her death from a 100ft motorway bridge was driven to suicide by NHS reforms, an inquest was told yesterday. Morag Wilson, 32, a manager at Wythenshawe hospital, stabbed herself with a kitchen knife before jumping from the M60 into the Manchester ship canal.

Patricia Hewitt will not be health secretary in new Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet.

Thousands of people in England are likely to receive more help towards their care costs, a minister has said. Ivan Lewis, the Care Services Minister, was unveiling a national framework for funding NHS continuing healthcare.

The aim is to standardise decisions on who is eligible for continuing care, making the process faster, fairer and more simple to understand. However, campaigners said the measures did not go far enough, and many people could still be unfairly treated. They also stressed it would not cover social or personal care, which includes help with washing, feeding and dressing.

Continuing nursing care – a package of nursing and social care – is needed mostly by elderly people to help them cope with illness, or an on-going medical condition. At present, decisions on who is eligible vary around the country, often leading to people with identical needs being treated differently. The new guidance – which will affect thousands of people living in care homes, and in their own homes – is an attempt to end this “postcode lottery” by introducing nationwide rules.

Mr Lewis said: “We understand that families do have to make difficult and emotional decisions when someone has to go into residential care and this can be made worse by having to consider how this will be funded.” He said the new system would not solve all the problems immediately, but would lead to real improvements over time.

He said: “It will lead to fair and consistent access to NHS funding across England, irrespective of location, diagnosis or personal circumstances. This will make the system faster and more convenient for both patients and professionals. In particular, it will be of help to those who previously have been excluded, such as younger adults with long term neurological conditions and older people with dementia or other mental health needs.”

Thousands of children – most of them girls – are ending up in hospital in England every year because of binge drinking, according to new government figures which were released yesterday.

The number of children with special needs in English schools has dropped slightly, according to new government figures. Over half (57.2%) of state school pupils at all levels have special educational needs, down by 1.5 percentage points from 2006.

The English Community Care Association (ECCA), the leading representative body for independent care homes, has welcomed the announcement that there would be a national system for defining access to continuing care.

Council workers are being told they will lose their jobs if they do not sign a fresh contract. Employees in Bolton’s adult services are being offered new terms and conditions – but they mean the workers will not be paid if they are off sick or on holiday.

Almost half of the 990 epilepsy-linked deaths in England each year are avoidable, says a parliamentary report. Nearly 70,000 patients do not get drugs they need, while even more are given medication unnecessarily, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Epilepsy said.

The Department of Health’s new guidance ‘The National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care’ has been heavily criticised by charities including the Alzheimer’s Society who believe the guidance doesn’t go far enough to give vulnerable people with dementia access to long term care funding.

Falls are costing the NHS nearly £1bn a year, mainly due to older people tripping on damaged or uneven pavements, a charity warned last night.