Thousands of carers have ended up worse off after a rise in the minimum wage last October, support groups say. The extra money has taken them above the threshold for claiming Carer’s Allowance, which is worth £46 a week.

Home Office ministers are refusing to abandon their policy of threatening to take the children of rejected asylum seekers into care despite a critical internal report saying it has failed to encourage them to leave the country.

The gulf between parents and risk-taking teenagers is revealed in a unique Guardian/ICM poll which explores the realities of growing up in Britain today. Teenagers drink, smoke, take more drugs and lose their virginity earlier than many of their parents believe, according to the results of the study.

Thousands of carers have ended up worse off after a rise in the minimum wage last October, support groups say. The extra money has taken them above the threshold for claiming Carer’s Allowance, which is worth £46 a week.

{mosimage}But if the people affected cut their weekly hours to under 16 to take them back under the threshold, they would then lose out on tax credits.

Support groups want the government to end what they say is a “catch-22 situation” but so far it has refused. Sarah lives in Liverpool and cares for her elderly mother as well as looking after her own 14-year-old son and working in the local chemist.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Money Box about the nasty shock when her wages went up. “I work 16 hours a week and earn the minimum wage. But when that went up to £5.35 an hour I was no longer entitled to claim the Carer’s Allowance.  I was £1.60 over the threshold,” she said.

To get Carer’s Allowance your wages have to be less than £84 a week. And the small rise in her weekly pay took her above that threshold meaning she lost the whole of her Carer’s Allowance – worth £46.95 a week.

The end of the NHS’s record budget rises does not mean health services will suffer, experts say. NHS funds have been rising by over 7% a year since 2002, but that stops in 2008 and is likely to drop to about 3.5%.

The number of health visitors in England has fallen to its lowest level in 12 years, a trade union says. Amicus said there had been a 40% cut in training places for those workers and warned many cases of domestic abuse and post-natal depression may be missed.

Children as young as eight are being used to “mind” guns for gangsters, it was claimed yesterday. Peter Herbert, a London barrister, told a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority that the problem of young children and guns was “significantly worse” than even the darkest picture painted by the media.

The Anglican Communion may still fall apart over homosexuality in spite of the eleventh-hour truce agreed by its leaders in Tanzania this week, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, warns today.

Deaths linked to hospital superbugs have increased dramatically, according to figures published yesterday. Between 2004 and 2005, the number of deaths recorded as associated with MRSA rose 39 per cent and those that mentioned Clostridium difficile rose by 69 per cent.

Children should not be left alone with dogs, a medic has warned. Instead of always blaming dogs for their behaviour, owners should be made more accountable, she said.