Scotland’s flagship free care scheme for the elderly was in turmoil last night after a judge ruled that it was wrong for councils to pay the care costs of thousands of pensioners in private nursing homes.

A heated verbal jousting match has erupted following the decision to increase home care service charges.

A recruitment drive has been launched to find new foster carers in West Lothian. Barnardo’s Scotland launched the drive this week which aims to encourage people in the region to consider fostering as a career.

More than a million people drink too much alcohol at least one night a week in Scotland, a new report has revealed.

A Scottish nurse who “didn’t like old people” murdered four elderly patients by injecting them with lethal doses of insulin, a court heard yesterday.

{mosimage}Colin Norris, from Glasgow, even predicted the time one woman would die, despite colleagues believing the pensioner was comfortable after hip surgery. The court heard that all four women died in the early hours when Norris was working, and they could all have been considered “a burden to nursing staff”. Norris was said to have told a colleague that one of his patients “was going off that night”, adding it was “just his luck” that she should die in the night, as he would “have all the paperwork to do”.

Three Vietnamese illegal immigrants were each jailed for two years yesterday after helping to run a cannabis factory capable of producing up to £1 million worth of drugs every two months.

A Council has come under attack for asking care providers to bid in an online auction for delivering services.

Day centres for disabled people were closed yesterday as hundreds of social care staff began an indefinite strike over pay and job cuts.

Scotland’s public service ombudsman was wrong to rule that a council was legally obliged to pay for the personal care of an elderly man, a judge ruled today.

The chief executive of NHS 24 has quit less than two weeks after a sheriff ruled the death of a child could have been avoided.