Urgent safety studies are needed for newer anti-epilepsy drugs that are being increasingly prescribed for children, say UK researchers. The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology report says prescriptions have risen five-fold in 13 years.

Ten children have been rescued over the past year after being traced through clues in online pictures of them being abused, police said. A further 66 children in the UK have been saved from abuse or the direct threat of it thanks to the work of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP).

The progression of Parkinson’s disease could be slowed or even stopped by a drug commonly used to treat high blood pressure, a study in Nature suggests. Tests on mice at Northwestern University in Chicago showed isradipine can rejuvenate the brain neurons which are dying in Parkinson’s patients.

More than 700,000 elderly people are subjected to abuse in their own homes or privately run nursing homes, according to the results of a new study to be published this

A health minister has ordered council bosses to talk with the borough’s Primary Care Trust (PCT) chiefs to sort out an £8 million social care row. Lord Philip Hunt dismissed any legal challenge to the transfer of social care costs from Brent PCT to Brent Council as ‘highly unlikely’ in response to a concerned letter from MP Dawn Butler.

Many patients do not know about the performance of their local NHS services, a poll suggests. Nearly a third said they were unaware how their local hospitals and GPs compared to others. And the Policy Exchange think tank poll of 1,000 people also found 79% wanted simple scorecards to refer to.

Pro-abortion MPS are preparing for a bitter political battle in an attempt to bring in termination on demand in the first three months of pregnancy. The cross-party group of MPs will also press to remove the need for two doctors to approve a termination, and for the procedure to be medically justified.

A judge has revealed that 14 children born to the same mother have been put into care because of her addiction to crack cocaine and other drugs. Apart from the human cost of the damage to the children’s upbringing, the bill to taxpayers to look after the children is likely to exceed £2m.

At the opening of UK carers week today, directors of adult services in England have urged the country’s nearly 4.88 million carers to look much more closely at ways of controlling their own care budgets.

Almost 8,000 sex offenders have been cautioned across England in the past five years, rather than being charged. Offences involving children accounted for more than 1,600 of the cautions, while more than 230 were for rape.