A unique, UK wide ICM survey for SmartJustice shows that most people do not agree with sending women to prison for non-violent offences. This is the first time the public have been asked how to reduce crime committed by women.

Family doctors will be allowed to use NHS money to prescribe social care support such as home helps and respite breaks for carers under plans to be announced by the government today. GPs will also be encouraged to spend NHS funds on home aids or adaptations such as grab rails or even relaying carpets where an elderly or disabled person may be at risk of falling or tripping – avoiding a large health service bill for emergency hospital treatment.

{mosimage}The proposals, which will be announced today by the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, represent the biggest shakeup of the rules governing commissioning of health and social services since the health service was set up after the second world war. Ms Hewitt will set out the government’s consultative proposals for a commissioning framework for health and wellbeing, which have been drawn up jointly with communities and the local government secretary Ruth Kelly, at a Guardian conference on integrated health, social care and housing services.

Some GPs are already commissioning services imaginatively within the rules, Ms Hewitt will say. They prescribe exercise for patients who are overweight, supply self-monitoring equipment and make available social work, counselling and occupational therapy services.

But there is a need now to go further, the minister will add, by giving GPs and their primary-care colleagues reassurance that they will not be stepping beyond legal limits if, by agreement with their local authority and NHS primary care trust, they decide to use health money to buy social care services.

GPs could prescribe air conditioning and child anger management classes under an £8.9m government scheme. Under the plans, the NHS could pay for air conditioning to be fitted to the homes of people with lung disease to improve their health in hot weather. And anger management classes would be given to children with behavioural problems.

Most foster carers in the UK are receiving either no payment at all or less than the minimum wage in return for caring for damaged and vulnerable young people, according to a survey out today.

Gordon Lishman, Director General of Age Concern, said: “We welcome today’s statement by Patricia Hewitt and Ruth Kelly. It is certainly a step in the right direction. Focusing on prevention, looking at the entire needs of older people and improved coordination between social services and the NHS is the only way forward for care.

The maximum wait for NHS hearing tests is to be slashed from more than two years to less than two months, as new technology is introduced to accelerate fitting of digital aids for hundreds of thousands of older people, the government said yesterday.

The Department of Health is today launching a campaign to boost the number of people taking up a career in social care. The new campaign aims to attract applicants to the social care sector, which needs to attract thousands of new recruits each year.

Young children are failing to get a good education in half the nursery and primary classes for three to five year olds, school inspectors warn in a report today. They are making insufficient progress in language and literacy, the most able are not being challenged and boys are already falling behind girls, says Ofsted.

Most Foundation Stage settings provide effective education and care, according to a new Ofsted report, The Foundation Stage: a survey of 144 settings.  However, the quality of provision varies between them.

Babies who attend formal child care, such as day nurseries, at the tender age of nine months are better behaved and less likely to experience a wide range of developmental problems at the age of three than the average child, according to new Government-funded research today.