A disabled man has been left languishing in hospital nearly nine months after doctors gave him the all-clear – because the council can’t find him a home. Alastair Scott was told he was fit to leave Astley Ainsley Hospital in early November after recuperating there from a broken leg. His sister said she would care for the 47-year-old – who is wheelchair-bound and brain-damaged – but needed somewhere bigger than her two-bedroom flat.

An autistic civil servant was fired by tax office managers after union representatives labelled him a health hazard, a tribunal has heard, writes Craig Brown. Patrick Roberts, 48, was sacked from his job with Customs and Excise when representatives from the LTS union described his behaviour as “a health and safety risk” to his fellow workers.

One in five Scots nurses has been bullied or harassed at work in the past year by a colleague, resulting in staff leaving the professions. Presenting what it says are “shocking” findings, the Royal College of Nursing in Scotland said 21% of nurses have suffered abuse from fellow staff and managers.According to the college, the victimisation has led to a quarter of nurses trying to change jobs, while almost 10% had given up their jobs as a result.The figures are revealed in a report called Breaking Point.

Ministers are proposing to abolish the distinct roles of district nurses and health visitors, leading to fears that thousands of patients will not receive the specialist care they need. Under the plans, the extensive range of titles currently used by more than 8000 NHS nurses who work outwith hospitals would merge into one new “community health” job. But nurses’ leaders are concerned the proposed shake-up will ultimately turn all community nurses into generalists and dilute their specialist skills.

Coca-Cola has admitted that it got it wrong when it used the word ‘psychos’ in an advertising campaign for a new soft drink. Complaints from ‘see me’, the Scottish mental health anti-stigma campaign and supporters of Stigma Stop Watch have resulted in the ad being withdrawn from TV, billboards and newspapers as of today, 24th July 2006.

Cocaine Use among Scots in their late 20s and early 30s has almost doubled in a year, according to a new report that suggests it now appears to be the drug of choice for young professionals. Across all age groups, use of the class A drug increased slightly, but in the 25-29 age group it almost doubled, from 1.4 per cent to 2.7 per cent of the population. In the 30-34 age group there was also a marked jump, from 1.9 per cent to 2.8 per cent.

Communities Scotland has awarded £150,000 to Greyfriars Community Project to establish a project giving opportunities to homeless people to make and sell products in Edinburgh’s Old Town. The funding will be used to secure premises and to set up workshops to produce goods to be sold in the shop. In addition the Edinburgh Cyrenians organic farm will supply vegetables to be sold in the shop. The aim of the project is to create 10 full-time jobs and help 60 people into a job.

Sensitive criminal record information and pre-conviction data is to be pooled in a UK-wide database for the first time to try to improve child protection provisions. The Scottish intelligence database has traditionally been kept by and for Scottish forces. But from September, it will be linked to the new national system in England and Wales, allowing officers to access information on any individual across Britain.Critics say the move, which follows the inquiry chaired by Sir Michael Bichard into the deaths of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham in 2002, raises questions about civil rights and data protection.

The health service helpline NHS 24 was criticised yesterday for failing two patients who later died, after an inquiry concluded they both could have been saved if their life-threatening illnesses had been properly diagnosed. In a damning determination, Sheriff James Tierney ruled that the telephone triage system, used to assess patients, had led to crucial delays in a teenage schoolgirl and a 30-year-old joiner receiving lifesaving treatment. In each case the system failed to identify the fact that both patients,

The number of youngsters in Fife continually getting into trouble with the law has risen. Latest figures show that the number of persistent young offenders in the region rose by 28 to 78 in the year 2005-06. But with more diversionary tactics and a step up in direct action by the police and voluntary agencies involved with young people, the rise has been put down to more hard graft and an increase in the reporting of crime.