The English Community Care Association (ECCA), the leading representative body for independent care homes, is pleased that the Government has listened to the sector and delayed its plans to extend the second phase of annual leave entitlement to 2009.

All of those who receive day care services from Herefordshire Council will be given an opportunity to comment on proposals to change charges. At last week’s meeting of Cabinet, councillors agreed to proposals for a number of changes in charging for services to adults needing non-residential social care.

Westminster Council is calling on carers across the country to get help from a network of support. Over 12,500 people in Westminster care for a loved one with a disability with 88% of those not benefiting from the support and assistance on offer from a ‘family’ of carers.

A Government report due out this week is to call for youth services to get more involved in community cohesion and integration work. The Communities and Local Government study, produced by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion, is expected to say services need to increase their focus on the area.

The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) has added its support to this year’s Carers Week, ‘My Life As a Carer’ (11-17 June). Paul Snell, CSCI’s Chief Inspector, said:

Plans to offer more “chemical castrations” to serious sex offenders will be among a raft of measures set to be unveiled by the government. Increasing provision of libido-reducing treatments forms part of a crackdown on paedophiles, sources told the BBC.

NHS Direct is referring on too many patients to GPs and emergency services, putting strain on the system, doctors and ambulance crews say. They claim to get urgent referrals when patients have minor problems, such as sprains and high temperatures, and have called for an inquiry into the service.

More than 150 children placed in care in the South East have vanished in the last three years. According to figures obtained by BBC South East Today 65 children who arrived at Gatwick Airport in Sussex on their own since 2004 have disappeared.

{mosimage}The figures released after a Freedom of Information request also show that 69 vanished from Kent and 27 from Surrey. Social workers say they are doing all they can but campaigners say they fear the children are being trafficked. They said more must be done to stop the missing youngsters being forced into domestic slavery and prostitution.

Some genuinely want to claim asylum but it is thought that many others have been forced to come to the UK from Africa, and increasingly China. The children are put on planes by one set of traffickers who arrange for them to be picked up at Gatwick Airport by another set who then take them away, Sussex Police believe. Prostitution is a likely occupation. Social workers at Gatwick often spot the victims before the traffickers do and are able to place them into care in Sussex. However the authorities also fear that many of these youngsters are later snatched back by the slavers.

Unaccompanied children that are picked up at Gatwick are currently looked after by foster carers or placed in hostels. But for five years there was a safe house in the county, where youngsters could be hidden. It was closed by West Sussex County Council in 2003.

The Children’s Workforce Network (CWN) has announced that it is hosting its first ever conference to bring together its Reference Group to network and contribute to the ‘Refresh’ of the Government’s Children’s Workforce Strategy.

Ministers have made some concessions to campaigners over the planned changes to mental heath laws. Health Minister Rosie Winterton has set a two-year target to ensure children are no longer treated in adult wards.

{mosimage}She has also said doctors will be given tight rules over the use of orders to force patients to take medicine and place them under detention if required.

Campaigners said the moves were welcome, but they still had some concerns. The bill, which amends the 1983 Act, has been designed to introduce powers in England and Wales to detain people with serious personality disorders even if they have not committed a crime.

The shake-up in the law has been driven by Michael Stone’s 1998 conviction for the brutal murders of Lin and Megan Russell. Stone was regarded as a dangerous psychopath but, because his condition was untreatable, he could not be held under mental health powers.

Concern had been raised that the bill would allow patients under 18 to be held in adult wards. The government has now said the bill will contain a clause saying they will be required to be treated in “age-appropriate settings”.

People detained under the mental health laws will also be given access to advocacy services to champion their rights. And the victims of mental health offenders will be given the chance to make representations over their proposed release.

Ministers have also made concessions over the most sensitive aspect of the bill – community treatment orders. Doctors will be told they can only impose the orders if they are aimed at preventing harm to the individual’s health or safety or protecting the public.