Health chiefs are to press ahead with a new ‘out of hours’ system for social workers — despite the objections of professionals.

A support service which works with 150 families across west Belfast has vowed to fight funding cuts which will see it close in October.

Old people just grow lonesome / Waiting for someone to say, ‘Hello in there, hello.'” So wrote the poet and singer John Prine. He might have had the levels of homecare provision in mind.

People who grew up in the worst years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland are more prone to suicide, according to research at Queen’s University Belfast.

The authorities in Northern Ireland are failing young people who are at risk of getting involved in crime, a report has found.

NEW research launched by the Resurgam Partnership (made up of the PHA, Resurgam Community Development Trust and Lisburn City Council) on the 20th of June found that 75% of those attending three post-primary schools in Lisburn leave school without five or more GCSEs, which include English and Maths, and very few go onto university or college.

Edwin Poots, as Health Minister, has published proposals for a radical series of changes across the whole range of health and social care services. The 99 recommendations are a matrix of interdependent changes found in Transforming Your Care (TYC): the Compton report.

Social workers, social services teams and voluntary organisations were honoured at the Social Work Awards in Northern Ireland in June. The regional awards event featured two winners from the Belfast HSC Trust – its Regional HIV Social Work Team and Harry Murphy, a social worker with adults at the Beech Hall Day Centre.

TEMPLEPATRICK woman Susan Semple, who was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, said she was surprised and delighted with the accolade.

The Big Lottery Fund is giving £7m in grants to help tackle alcohol abuse in Northern Ireland. The money is to be split between the five health and social care trusts, who will distribute it to organisations in their respective areas.