After five years as chief executive, Peter Cardy will be leaving leading cancer care charity Macmillan Cancer Support, at the end of the year. Under Peter’s leadership, Macmillan has developed and grown significantly.  It has progressed from a charity working mainly via health professionals to a more broad based organisation which places the experience and involvement of people affected by cancer at its heart.

The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) has responded to the first inspections of domiciliary care services in England by urging councils and agencies to seek good practice guidance and support. Speaking about the CSCI report Time to care? Chief Executive of SCIE Bill Kilgallon said:

The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) in consultation with the Eppi Centre has brought the majority of the available research studies on parental mental health problems and child welfare together for the first time in a systematic map of the research. Using the ‘systematic mapping’ research method – developed in health and education research – SCIE has developed the first social care ‘map’ of research on the extent of parental mental health problems in the UK, the impact of those problems and the interventions available.

{mosimage}Inspectors have criticised the standard of home care for hundreds of thousands of elderly people in England. The Commission for Social Care Inspection report said many people found their carers too rushed and there was little time to build trust. Commission chair Dame Denise Platt said the report Time to Care? painted a “mixed picture” of the quality of care. The report concluded that the services were vital for thousands, but councils should rethink them and offer people more choice. Dame Denise said: “It is critical that those who commission and provide home care services listen to what people say they want and value. Failure to listen to what people really need, and respond to this, results in missed opportunities to promote independence and to help people live full and rewarding lives. At worst, it can also result in services that do not respect people’s rights and dignity.”

{mosimage}Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton is expected to hail inroads into child poverty on Wednesday, but warn there is plenty left to do. A report from the Department for

Mental health charity Rethink has responded to the think tank ‘Reform’s’ report on mental health care; ‘Mental health services in the NHS: using reform incentives.’ Rethink’s director of public affairs Paul Corry said: “Rethink welcomes this report which shows that people experiencing a mental illness encounter poor community services, long waiting times and lack of access to specialist care.

A think tank report has suggested that only the introduction of patient choice and competition can succeed in delivering better NHS mental health services. Published by the centre-right Reform group, the study said that current services concentrate on the most seriously mentally ill and that more resources should be diverted to community care.

Hundreds of carers are missing out on vital support services because they have not asked for their needs to be assessed, according to East Sussex County Council. The authority is launching a county-wide series of roadshows in a bid to bolster the numbers of carers who are assessed to see how the council may be able to help them. This could lead to benefits including paid-for breaks from caring, training courses or equipment to make their lives easier – or they could be referred to partner organisations who can offer them support.

The plight of teachers who suffer unfounded allegations of abuse from pupils is now relatively well known, although still too little has been done about it. Less well known is that many foster parents are victims too. Many teachers are suspended, often for long periods, and cut off from support networks, before they are reinstated. Foster carers suffer even more. They can lose their income, and the child or children they have been fostering, while complaints are slowly and painfully investigated. The disruption to the children is appalling and the impact on the carers is devastating.

As many as 80 cottage and community hospitals in England are threatened with cuts or closures in direct contradiction to Government policy, which calls for more health services near people’s homes. Campaigners have said that 10 community hospitals closed within the first six months of this year and that since 1999 as many as 2,000 local beds had been lost. The cuts are being forced by financial deficits and many of the affected hospitals are in Conservative constituencies.