Thousands of families may be forced to pay “top-up fees” for the care of elderly loved ones due to a multi-million-pound shortfall in government funding.

{mosimage}The first commitment from the recent Our Health, Our Care, Our Say White Paper was delivered today when guidance on the new Director of Adult Social Services (DASS) role was issued by Ivan Lewis, Care Services Minister.

The new role will provide strengthened leadership, work on closer integration of health and social care as set out in the White Paper, and deliver strategic needs assessments. Best practice statutory guidance to help local authorities implement the new post has been sent to social services chief executives today.

A multi-agency partnership is calling for an increase in appropriate housing to improve the health and wellbeing of older people in the South West of England.

The head of social services in Wiltshire, Dr Ray Jones, has quit his job, amid the Who pays for care?’ row between the county council and primary care trusts.

Doctors in England are to get new guidelines telling them how to help patients tackle obesity head on. GPs will have to treat obesity as if it were any other medical condition and advise overweight patients to slim under the new government guidelines.

On June 13, 2002, 108-year-old Alice Knight finally starved herself to death. It was her protest, a protest against being moved from the care home she loved to one she did not recognise.

The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) has launched new guidance outlining ways that social care organisations can ensure significant participation of children and young people in developing and improving their services.

The chairman of Cambridgeshire’s health watchdog has blasted the Department of Health for failing to respond to concerns about mental health cuts.

Kent County Council has worked with IT supplier Anite to develop an online self-assessment application for citizens seeking council care services.

A leading care charity has today hit out at the Government over shortfalls in funding for commissioned services.