Admission and discharge of patients are being restricted on five wards at the Royal Gwent Hospital due to an outbreak of diarrhoea and vomiting.

The latest chief executive of the beleaguered Welsh Ambulance Service has been praised for putting the service on the road to recovery. Ambulance Today described Alan Murray’s achievements at the ailing service as “remarkable” – he has been in post for just eight months.

The falling cost of cocaine has been blamed for a rise in the number of adults taking illegal drugs. Official figures have revealed that while child drug use has fallen, adult use has risen slightly.

Former council care workers employed in old people’s homes that were privatised are facing huge cuts in pay this summer. Now the trade union Unison has strongly attacked the Labour-controlled council that hived off the homes five years ago.

The transfer of Wales’ health advice and information service into the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust heralds a new approach to healthcare in this country. NHS Direct Wales has been merged with the ambulance trust as part of a move to ensure that patients are referred to the most appropriate services.

A leading researcher has called for a revolution in how bipolar disorder is diagnosed and treated. Professor Nick Craddock of Cardiff University believes that diagnosis and treatment should be based on a better understanding of the genetic, biological and psychological factors that determine a person’s susceptibility to the illness.

Health chiefs have been accused of hiding the true extent of superbugs striking hospital patients across Wales. A leading support group which helps MRSA patients claims hospitals are discharging patients early in a desperate bid to keep official killer infection rates under wraps.

Bosses of a leading Welsh charity which helps children in Africa have admitted backing plans to import thousands of tonnes of a controversial drug into Britain. The Samburu Maasai Wales Aid group is well known for its fundraising to help tribes in northern Kenya.

The big differences between Welsh life in the 1970s, the present day and the future can be revealed today. While life expectancy has increased hugely there are now significantly fewer births, marriages and deaths than in 1971, according to an Assembly Government report on demographic changes in Wales since that year.

A driver blacked out at the wheel in a diabetic attack and killed a district nurse walking on the pavement, a court heard yesterday. Nurse Suzanne Meredith, 54, died instantly and her lecturer husband Julian was seriously injured in the freak crash.