An elderly people’s home in Lancashire is to remain closed to new admissions. Bolton Council’s social services department closed Farnworth Care Home in Church Street, Farnworth, to new residents in February after a damning inspection report condemned the standard of care it offers. And despite a second inspection finding that the home had made significant improvements since the initial report at the start of the year, the decision has not been revoked.

Drink-related hospital admissions in England have reached record levels according to a new compilation of statistics, published today by The Information Centre for health and social care (The IC), which present a broad national picture of alcohol use. Numbers admitted to hospital with a diagnosis of alcoholic liver disease have more than doubled over the past ten years with 35,400 admissions in 2004-05, up from 14,400 in 1995-96. Twice as many men as women were admitted with this illness. Death rates linked to alcoholic liver disease have also risen steadily to just over 4,000 in 2004, a 37 per cent increase in the 5 years since 1999.

New research provides compelling evidence that the quality of life and isolation of older people receiving care is dramatically improved when citizen volunteers are ‘prescribed’. The full, research launched on Tuesday 4 July 2006, was commissioned by CSV, Help the Aged and the British Red Cross. It finds that 83% of older people receiving volunteer support report improvements in their quality of life. Face-to-face interviews conducted as part of the research also reveals that some older people prefer support from volunteers, reflecting their poor experience of care in the past.

A Swindon woman who has been touched by the effects of drug abuse has joined the staff of a local drug and alcohol service in a bid to set up a support group for carers of people dealing with drug addiction.  When Moya Pinson moved to Swindon from the North East, a member of her family was already receiving treatment for drug addiction and she was worried that things would go backwards after the move. National drugs charity Release provided her with ongoing support and put her in touch with Swindon’s specialist drug and alcohol service.

Employees in the childcare sector who are paid less than the minimum wage will be given a helping hand by the Government, Employment Minister Jim Fitzpatrick announced today.  Teams from HM Revenue & Customs, which ensures payment of the minimum wage, will begin a year-long enforcement campaign after finding widespread evidence of non-payment of the minimum wage. This will involve a combination of education, targeted enforcement and working with employers.

In the London borough of Tower Hamlets, Pensions Minister James Purnell today launched one of eight pilot schemes providing services for socially excluded older people. The programme, called Link-Age Plus, will provide a focal point for older people to access information on Housing, Transport, Health, & Employment. Pilots will also run in Devon, Gateshead, Gloucestershire, Lancaster, Leeds, Nottinghamshire and Salford. The scheme is part of the government’s strategy for older people, A Sure Start to Later Life: Ending inequalities for older people, published in January 2006.

A service has been launched which means mental health patients picked up by police in South Yorkshire will no longer have to be held in the force’s cell blocks. Under the Mental Health Act police have the power to detain anyone who appears to be in need of a mental health assessment, with the right to hold them in what is deemed by law a place of safety.

The system that will replace incapacity benefits should be more considerate to people with mental illnesses, Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton says. His Welfare Reform Bill, published later this week, replaces benefits with an employment support allowance. But disability rights’ groups fear a taskforce will not have enough time to deliver a new test for the allowance. The proportion of people claiming such benefits due to mental illness has risen from 16% in 1988 to almost 40%.

Children and Families Minister Beverley Hughes announced that action has been stepped up to tackle child abuse linked to ‘possession’ and ‘witchcraft’. A comprehensive cross-agency strategy has already been put in place to speed-up the identification of cases by local agencies and deal with the perpetrators, as well as to help prevent cases happening in the first place. Prevention depends on Local Authorities having strong links with new communities.

Psychological therapy for sex offenders can reduce re-offending rates, but does not provide a cure, a study says. Researchers from the Universities of London and Leicester reviewed nine studies involving 567 offenders in the US, UK, Canada and Europe. Some treatment programmes have cut re-offending by up to 40%. But experts said the British Medical Journal report was wrong to talk about curing as it was not a medical problem and could not be solved as such.