One in seven children are growing up homeless or are living in “bad housing”, a new report has claimed. The research by homelessness charity Shelter says the figure amounts to 1.6 million youngsters in the UK.

Vaccinating care home staff against influenza can prevent illness, deaths and health service use during periods of moderate influenza activity, concludes a study published online by the BMJ. Weak immune systems mean that many care home residents are vulnerable to influenza outbreaks even when they have been vaccinated. Many countries offer influenza vaccine to healthcare workers every year, but in the UK most care homes do not vaccinate their staff.

This week, the BMJ reveals serious concerns about a study on sudden infant deaths which was used as evidence in several high profile murder appeals. In a special report, freelance journalist Jonathan Gornall raises questions about the paper’s findings and asks was the message of this study misleading?

{mosimage}The wider social impact of immigration to the UK is set to be assessed by an independent body advising ministers, the government has said. Home Secretary John Reid said the proposed body would help assess economic need and skills shortages.

But it will also be charged with advising on where immigration has a negative impact. Mr Reid said at present there was no systematic weighing up of the benefits and costs of immigration. The Home Office says it wants to hear the public’s views on the proposed body before it is introduced by 2008.

Immigration to the UK is being radically overhauled with the introduction of a new “points-based system”. Highly skilled migrants will have more chance of settling in the UK than those with fewer skills.

Mr Reid said he also expected the system to build confidence though a “migration advisory committee” (MAC).

A nursing home that helps hospitals cope with the pressure of bed blocking could be forced to close. West Sussex County Council will decide whether to launch a consultation into the possible closure of Burscroft Nursing Home, in Pond Road, Shoreham. The home has recently been used to rehabilitate elderly people following surgery so their hospital beds can be released for other patients. Patients stay for up to six weeks until they are ready to return home.

Government plans for children’s databases could end up putting children at increased risk by diverting resources away from frontline services and are already breaking data protection and privacy laws according to a report ordered by the Information Commissioner. The report, Children’s Databases – Safety and Privacy, written by the Foundation for Information Policy and Research (FIPR), examines the range of databases currently in existence across social services, youth offending, education and healthcare and proposals for new databases.

A Christian judge is taking legal action against the UK Government after claiming he had to resign from his role because he was against ruling on adoption cases which would have placed children in the care of same sex couples. Andrew McClintock stepped down after his request to not have to deal with cases involving gay parents were dismissed.

Redistributing wealth in a major economy inevitably involves large numbers. The fact that Gordon Brown is spending £79 billion a year on benefits and tax credits will not, by itself, be his undoing. But it will alarm many pondering a choice between him and David Cameron at the next election that more of their taxes are funding the welfare state than are being spent on preparing young people to make their own way in the world; which is to say, on education.

For some time now there has been concern that social work is a “demographic timebomb” in terms of the nature of the qualified workforce. The influx of recruitment into social work in the 1970s is now nearing retirement and some departments are concerned about losing significant proportions of their qualified and experienced workforce over the next decade.

Following the publication of the Green Paper Care Matters: Transforming the Lives of Children and Young People in Care on 9 October, Minister for Children and Families, Beverley Hughes, has announced the membership of four working groups which have been set up to look at specific aspects of care.

{mosimage}Lord Herbert Laming, who led the Victoria Climbie enquiry, will chair the group looking at placement reform.

This group will develop the proposals set out in the Green Paper on radically transforming both foster and residential care.

Martin Narey, Chief Executive of Barnardos, will be responsible for chairing a group exploring the characteristics of the care population and examining the ideas in Care Matters of developing a vision of care in the future.

Dame Professor Pat Collarbone, of the Training and Development Agency, is chairing a group which will look at ways of ensuring that all children in care receive the best possible education in schools.