Patients are at risk of malnutrition as there are not enough nurses to ensure they are properly fed, a poll says. Nearly half of the 2,193 nurses quizzed by the Royal College of Nursing said there were not enough staff to help patients.

The UK has an unusually severe drugs problem and the government’s strategy has had a very limited impact on drug use, a new watchdog body has been told. The report for the independent UK Drug Policy Commission said more addicts were being treated.

{mosimage}But it added that the benefits were limited, and there was little evidence education schemes had had an impact. The Home Office insisted the strategy was working – with a 16% decline in drug use since 1998.

BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said the report was part of the debate about the government’s 10-year drug strategy, which is due to be updated in the next year.

Attempts to restrict the availability of drugs by arresting dealers and seizing supplies were failing and drugs prices on the street were falling, the report argued. And the benefits of drugs treatment programmes were limited because some users relapse and many go untreated, the report added.

An independent public inquiry into the supply of contaminated NHS blood to haemophilia patients is set to hear evidence from those affected. During the 1970s and early 1980s, nearly 5,000 people were exposed to hepatitis C and of these more than 1,200 were also infected with HIV.

A new points-based system aimed at restricting immigration to the UK to those with skills in demand will start in the new year, it has been confirmed. Immigration minister Liam Byrne unveiled the timetable on a visit to Australia, which uses a similar system.

The Royal College of Nursing voted overwhelmingly yesterday to take industrial action over pay throughout the NHS if the government does not back down within a month to rescind a decision to postpone part of this year’s award.

Over two-thirds of young people in care believe they should have the option of going to boarding school rather than staying in a care home or foster family, according to findings published yesterday.

Controversial revisions to mental health legislation will strike the right balance between improving patient safeguards and protecting the public, the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, said yesterday.

Large-scale immigration has damaged the poorest communities and deeply unsettled the country, Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, says today. Mr Byrne says that inequality and child poverty are two of the main side-effects of migration, which has been running at record levels since Labour came to power.

The welfare of children must be at the heart of the processes involved in considering whether to take a child into care, Family Justice Minister Harriet Harman said. Ms Harman spoke at a conference organised by The Michael Sieff Foundation with the support of Children Law UK to examine the future of childcare proceedings.

A Conduct Committee of the General Social Care Council (GSCC) decided the case of a social worker from Rugby who was alleged to have breached the code of practice for social care workers by engaging in inappropriate touching and physical contact with service users.