Parents are set to benefit from a share of £7.5million being invested in better services for parents by the Government. Families Minister Beverley Hughes has explained that far from telling parents what to do, the Government wants parents to have the information and support that they are asking for.

Social workers may be at greater risk of facing sudden and unexpected poverty, according to the latest figures from welfare charity Elizabeth Finn Care. The organisation, which offers financial and emotional support to those whose careers have been interrupted or ended by personal tragedy, reports that social workers make up the seventh largest group helped by the charity.

Serious concerns were raised yesterday about an “abortion epidemic” after a leading clinic said it was conducting the most terminations in its 32-year history. Marie Stopes International, a charity, said it had recorded its busiest month for abortions – 6,000 in January alone.

{mosimage}The figure had risen from 5,304 in the same month last year, a rise of 13 per cent. The figures led to alarm from family campaigners and concern about women having multiple abortions. Around two thirds of the agency’s work is for the NHS, which refers women to its clinics and picks up the bill.

In total it conducted 61,983 abortions last year, a figure which anti-abortionists describe as appalling given the number of infertile couples desperate to have children.

Liz Davies, the director of UK operations at Marie Stopes, said it seemed that “we may be seeing the consequences of the festive season, when partying excess and alcohol consumption combine to increase libido and lower inhibition, with the inevitable consequences of unprotected sex resulting in unplanned pregnancies”.

The agency wants a Government campaign, before next Christmas, against unprotected sex and a ministerial emphasis on women storing emergency contraception in their bathroom cupboards.

A spokesman said: “We are not saying ‘ooh go on, get loads of pills and go out and have sex’. But we would like to see a better education campaign around Christmas kick-started by the Government.” She said those presenting themselves at clinics were not just young single women off the party circuit. “We don’t just mean flighty singles. We also see long-term couples. One of the reasons some women want an abortion is that they have three children already and do not have any money for a fourth.”

Two million children went to hospital A&E departments in the United Kingdom last year following accidents – many of which could have been prevented, a joint report by the health and public expenditure watchdogs has found.

Scientists should be allowed to create human-animal hybrid embryos in the search for treatments for nervous system disorders, a Government advisory body said yesterday. The Human Genetics Commission will give its unanimous backing to the research in a public consultation to be carried out later this year by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

The position of Ivan Lewis, the health minister responsible for maternity services in England, was called into question yesterday after he failed to represent the government at the launch of a new maternity strategy for the NHS.

All newborn babies in England are to be checked for a rare inherited condition, the government has said. The test is for a metabolic disease called Medium Chain Acyl CoA Dehydrogenase Deficiency (MCADD).

A combination of antiviral drugs should be stockpiled for use in an influenza pandemic, say researchers in this week’s BMJ. We currently have two classes of drugs that are effective against influenza viruses: the ion channel inhibitors and the neuraminidase inhibitors.

Incoherent Government policy and inadequate funding is creating a crisis that threatens to overwhelm the prison health care system, says the British Medical Association.

Last month, the BMJ reported a fall in the number of young women attending smear tests. Now, two senior doctors warn that a new policy not to screen women aged 20-24 may be a factor in falling coverage and could increase the risk of cancer developing in young women.