Lives could be lost if first-aid teaching is reduced in schools, health charities warned last night. Proposed changes to the personal and social education courses in schools include removing first aid at key stage four, and downgrading it to a skill that could, rather than should, be learned at key stage three.

Deputy Health Minister and Minister for Older People, John Griffiths AM, have launched a report setting out the next phase of the 10 year Strategy for older people in Wales. The strategy was originally launched in 2003 and has been backed by a total of £13m from the Assembly Government.

Thousands of teachers, parents and children in Wales are taking part in a study looking at the impact of family stress on school work. Dr Gordon Harold from Cardiff University has been funded by the Assembly to look at how family factors affect pupils moving from primary to secondary school and their long-term academic achievement.

More than 2,000 residents have signed a petition against plans to build a new prison in a Gwent town. Cwmbran townspeople have joined forces to campaign against proposed Home Office plans for a prison on the site of the town’s former Police training college in Greenmeadow.

An integrated town hospital and Wellbeing Centre, with an estimated cost of £20m that will be a flagship for integrated community services in Wales, has been announced by the Health and Social Services Minister Dr Brian Gibbons.

Conservatives have promised better hospitals and schools and more affordable homes in their Welsh assembly election manifesto. Tory leader David Cameron joined party assembly leader Nick Bourne for the launch near Mold, in Flintshire.

All school staff should be given basic information about diabetes, a health charity has warned. Diabetes UK Cymru says better provision should be made for children with diabetes when they are at school.

Matthew Rhys’s sister has inspired him to lend his support to children’s charity NSPCC Cymru. After working on the helpline, she heard first-hand from terrified and alone children reaching out for help.

Childcare students and lecturers from around the EU have been visiting Wales. Groups from Germany, Finland and Belgium spent a week at Coleg Gwent’s Ebbw Vale campus. As well as attending childcare lectures they visited schools and childcare settings in the area.

The most radical shake-up of NHS dentistry in 50 years is failing patients, dentists claimed today. A year after the new contract was introduced, the British Dental Association said that patient access to NHS services had not increased.