A hearing into the conduct of a Registered Social Worker from Portsmouth will be held on 12 and 13 June 2007 by the social care workforce regulator for England, the General Social Care Council (GSCC).

Police will today begin exhumations of elderly people who were living at a care home, as part of a widening investigation into concern about how they died. Detectives will announce they are investigating at least seven suspicious deaths at the Parkfields residential care home near Glastonbury, Somerset.

{mosimage}In what officers admit is a “drastic step”, the remains of Nellie Mary Pickford, who died almost a year ago at 89, will be removed from a graveyard. A postmortem will try to establish how she died, after which she will be reburied. Over the next five weeks, two forther former residents of the home in Butleigh will be exhumed and examined. They follow the arrest of a registered nurse, Rachel Baker, 42, and her husband, Leigh, a 48-year-old chef, who ran the home. Mrs Baker was questioned on suspicion of administering a noxious substance, and Mr Baker of “being concerned” in the administering. Both are on bail.

The police inquiry began after concerns were raised by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI), which registers, inspects, and reports on social care services in England. Its concern followed the death of one resident, Lucy Cox, aged 97, at the home on New Year’s Day. Detective Superintendent Trevor Simpson of Avon and Somerset police, heading a team of 25 officers, said they had “considered long and hard” before taking this “drastic step” of exhumations.

He said: “It is a very serious step to take, unprecedented in this force’s history; but we feel that to successfully and properly conduct this investigation we need to do this. The purpose is to conduct a postmortem looking for the cause of death and achieving samples for analysis. Hopefully then, within three days, the family can conduct a private burial and she can be returned to her resting place.”

The other two exhumations will take place in Butleigh next Tuesday and in Kingweston on July 10. Police will not reveal the identities of the bodies.

A postmortem has been completed on Ms Cox. The bodies of a further three former residents were cremated. Det Supt Simpson would not comment on whether any other deaths at the home were being queried or investigated.

The inquiry began in January after fears about the care home were flagged up by the CSCI. Neither the police nor the CSCI has said who raised the concerns, but it is understood to have been a staff member.

A new bid to alter current abortion laws is to be made in Parliament – the third such attempt in eight months. Ann Winterton’s bill would require women to be counselled about possible ill-effects, then to wait a week to consider them before going ahead.

Figures released by Skills for Care, the national workforce development organisation for People working in adult social care, show that for the first time ever all of its allocated funds to employers under the banner of the Training Strategy Implementation Fund  (TSI) have been fully used for the purpose.

Guidance issued by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) should offer hope to patients suffering from chronic heart failure, according to campaigning coalition The Medical Technology Group.

The Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) has announced that a newly updated version of the ‘Making it Happen – Working together for children, young, people and families’ booklet is now available.

Learning and physical disabilities and behavioural problems are part of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders [FASD]. These lifelong conditions can drastically impact on the lives of the individual and those around them.

Guidelines to assist health professionals who suspect cases of forced marriage have been launched by the Government. Aimed at frontline practitioners such as GPs, school nurses, midwives, and A&E staff, the guidelines provide practical advice on how to recognise the warning signs, and what to do if a patient discloses that they have been, or are about to be, forced to marry.

As a result they may be able to claim tens of thousands of pounds in compensation after a landmark Court of Appeal judgment. It held that their human rights were breached because they were kept in prison beyond the date on which they became eligible for parole.

{mosimage}The Prison Service and the Parole Board are so concerned at the far-reaching consequences of the judgment that they are planning to appeal to the Law Lords, the most senior judges in England and Wales.

Latest figures indicate that between 500 and 700 prisoners a year miss their early release deadline because of delays within the jail system.

Derrick Johnson, who was sentenced to seven years for supplying drugs, was held in jail for an unjustified and arbitrary 8½ months beyond the date on which he was eligible for parole, according to the Court of Appeal. Johnson, from Bristol, was jailed in May 2000 at the city’s Crown Court and was eligible for parole in June 2003.

In accordance with usual practice he was asked six months before that date whether he wished to apply for parole and told the authorities that he wanted to be considered for early release. There was then a long delay in assembling the dossier that must go to the Parole Board when it considers a case.

Among the papers are reports from the Probation Service including details of settling the offender on leaving jail and others from prison staff on behaviour in prison, assessment of likely reoffending and courses undertaken to tackle offending behaviour or substance misuse.

Mental illness is now the second largest reason for UK workers taking time off, a report suggests. A study by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found an increasing amount of sickness leave is due to depression or stress.