Failure by companies and politicians to address problems with mental ill health, such as stress, depression and anxiety, costs the British economy £10 billion a year.

Lack of advice and support on key issues like housing, benefits and debt puts prisoners at risk of re-offending, a new report from Citizens Advice says today. A study by the national charity has found that thousands of prisoners fail to get the support they need to ensure their basic needs are met when they are released from jail.

CALM, the Campaign Against Living Miserably, temporarily suspended their helpline for young men on 16th March 2007 after the National Lottery and other organisations refused to fund it. The helpline/online service has taken over 33,000 calls from young men in distress in the  UK over the last 9 years.

Leading retailers such as Boots and Tesco will be invited to bid to open GPs’ surgeries in their stores in areas with too few doctors under an initiative to be announced by the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, today.

When Marie, a young girl from Cameroon, turned up in Manchester at the end of 2004 she was just one of hundreds of asylum seeking children alone in the city looking for help. Her story was harrowing.

{mosimage}Having been trafficked to France and forced into prostitution by her aunt, she fled to Britain with the help of a man who said he would help her escape.

Suffering a range of physical and mental health problems, probably due to the the abuse she endured, Marie was admitted to hospital. In two months she was dead.

A post-mortem examination revealed natural causes.She was 16. Sadly, Marie’s case is thought to be just the tip of the iceberg and part of a growing industry which contributes to the 5,000 child sex slaves recently estimated to be working in the UK by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

This comes as the UK marks the 200th anniversary of the Parliamentary Act to abolish the slave trade. According to Ecpat UK, an organisation which represents charities working against child exploitation, Marie’s was one of 28 known cases of trafficked children in Manchester in 2005.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for “truly personalised” services with people given the information and power needed to choose a school or hospital. His policy review of public services says people want services more tailored to their needs, with more choice and a “greater diversity of providers”.

Over two-thirds of British Asians think that reporting child abuse would have a negative affect on the ‘honour’, known as ‘izzat’, of a child’s family, according to a survey by the NSPCC.

{mosimage}Over half of the 500 respondents, who were drawn from the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities also felt that reporting child abuse to the authorities would have a negative affect on their own or their family’s ‘honour’. The respondents took part in face to face interviews and rated the sexual abuse of a child as having the most negative effect on family ‘honour’, followed by physical abuse then emotional abuse.

NSPCC Asian Helpline Manager, Saleha Islam said: “Child abuse happens in all communities and there is no evidence that it is greater amongst British Asians. However, cultural issues and the importance placed on family reputation could mean that it is being hidden away.

“Izzat means that family comes before the individual, but to keep children safe from abuse their interests must come first.  We want to send out a message to the British Asian community that putting up a wall of silence will not protect children. It will only protect the abuser who will be free to abuse again.”

Social Care Association, professional membership organisation for social care workers gave three awards at their annual dinner at the Erskine Bridge Hotel in Renfrewshire on Tuesday 13 March.

Young women tricked into coming to England, often by boyfriends, are being sold off in auctions at airport coffee shops as soon as they arrive. They are among the thousands of women brought into the UK to be sex slaves, usually with no idea of their fate.

A modified version of the virus that causes Aids could become the basis of a prenatal gene therapy for cystic fibrosis, new research has suggested.British scientists have discovered that a form of HIV, adapted to be harmless, is a promising vector for ferrying replacement genes into the lungs of affected foetuses.