Elderly could be charged more for home care

Elderly could be charged more for home care

The elderly could face soaring bills for home care, as a Government-backed report suggests councils should free up resources by increasing their charges so that middle-class pensioners are forced into the private sector.

Ministers have endorsed an Audit Commission report that encourages local government chiefs to remove maximum charges for home helps and other means-tested personal services for the “most affluent” elderly.

Read more on this story in The Daily Telegraph

NHS pay system puts lives at risk in the south

Centralised pay settlements in the NHS are killing patients because hospitals cannot recruit sufficient skilled staff, according to leading economists.

Wage controls under which nurses’ pay is set with relatively little extra for working in London or the south-east mean that hospitals in these high-cost areas struggle to recruit and retain staff, according to Carol Propper and Jan Van Reenen, professors at Bristol University’s Centre for Market and Public Organisation and the London School of Economics’ Centre for Economic Performance.

Read more on this story in The Financial Times

Family ‘traumatised’ in bungled deportation

A Nigerian mother of four has accused the Home Office of traumatising her children during a bungled deportation operation at Gatwick yesterday. Comfort Adefowoju also revealed last night that her two girls were deliberately separated from their mother during an early morning drive from Yarl’s Wood detention centre to Gatwick, where they were meant to be deported back to Nigeria.

The deportation had to be cancelled an hour before the family were to be put on a flight to Lagos because Home Office officials had failed to buy a ticket for Adefowoju’s youngest, seven-month-old Sarah.

Read this story in The Guardian