A database of knife crime is to be set up by the Home Office in the wake of a series of horrific murders. Home Secretary John Reid announced the move yesterday amid rising concern about knife attacks and teenagers carrying weapons.

A great-grandmother faces blindness because the NHS will not pay for a sight-saving drug. Lillian Driscoll has already spent her savings paying for a series of injections, but she may need more treatment to prevent her eyesight deteriorating further.

The battle over whether council houses should remain in local authority ownership has led to allegations of blatant misrepresentation as tenants vote on the issue in Wales’ second city. Mick Bennett, the director of Community Housing Cymru, the umbrella body for housing associations, said he was appalled at claims made in leaflets distributed in Swansea.

Out-of-hours doctors in Wales can now access patients’ health records online. It is hoped the initiative, developed by Informing Healthcare, will improve the care patients receive outside of normal working hours.

The NHS in Wales has added at least another £17m to its massive debt in the past year, Wales on Sunday has learned. The figure – set to be revealed when Wales’ 14 NHS Trusts publish their end-of-financial-year figures at the end of the month – means the true scale of debt across the Welsh NHS is likely to be approaching £130m.

Just yards separate them,but The Anchor and City Arms are world’s apart – or more accurately, they are country’s apart, sitting either side of the Welsh-English border.
In The Anchor, drinkers will be banned from puffing with their pints from April 2 according to Welsh Assembly Government legislation.

Around 300 workers at a north Wales council could lose their jobs according to a trade union. Unison has warned jobs at Gwynedd Council could be cut by the authority to help it balance its finances. The council has not confirmed the total but said letters offering voluntary redundancy had been sent to staff.

More than 2,100 children in Wales are at risk of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, a charity warns today. The shocking figure of the number of children on the at-risk register comes as the NSPCC Cymru launches its latest campaign to encourage people to act.

{mosimage}The charity is urging people to contact its helpline if they are concerned about the welfare of a child they know. One in five calls to the child protection helpline are about the neglect of a child. A further 17% of calls were about sexual abuse.

And the majority of calls are made by concerned members of the public, although one in 20 were made by a child themselves.

Chris O’Marah, manager of the NSPCC Cymru child protection helpline, said, “More than 2,000 children in Wales are known to be at risk of abuse right now and there are many more that we don’t know about.

“Our research shows that only one in four abused children will feel able to tell anyone about it at the time. Child abuse happens in every community and it is our responsibility as adults to speak out about any concerns that we may have”.

The new NSPCC campaign, launched today – “Don’t keep it to yourself – Do something” – is aimed at people about the welfare of a child and urges them to contact the helpline.

Alun, a worried relative, was one of thousands of people to call the helpline. His niece had recently revealed that she was being sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend while she was out at work in the evenings. The police were notified immediately and the boyfriend is now in custody awaiting a preliminary court hearing.

Police have launched an investigation after a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl. The 15-year-old girl was attacked by a man on a footpath next to a railway line in Trelewis, Merthyr Tydfil. Police said the attack took place between 2230 GMT on Friday and 0030 GMT on Saturday.

An internet paedophile spared jail after a request by the Home Secretary to use prison sparingly was today imprisoned for eight months.