Including headlines from Scotland and Wales.
By Clare Jerrom, Reg McKay and Alex Dobson.
Milburn defies unions on plans to employ foreign health staff
Terms for overseas healthcare teams to work in Britain will be outlined today by health secretary Alan Milburn.
The health secretary will outline plans for foreign companies to be brought in to help to design, run and build a network of fast track surgery centres.
Several foreign companies will attend the meeting at Whitehall as Milburn publishes the plans of what he expects from the teams of "core clinicians".
Milburn has made it plain he will only sign contracts if he feels there are real benefits for NHS patients.
Source:- The Times Tuesday 25 June page 4
How two teenagers joined depressed wife in death leap
They were strangers until this year, but they chose to end their lives together. Their case has prompted a flurry of inquiries
Source:- The Times Tuesday 25 June page 9
Anonymity urged for battered women
Women who have suffered domestic violence may be granted protection from publicity under reforms urged by the solicitor general yesterday in a bid to encourage more women to give evidence about violent partners.
Harriet Harman QC said a change to the law to grant anonymity to victims should be looked at by the Law Commission.
At a conference in London, Harman said more women might be prepared to give evidence if they knew their names would remain confidential.
She also called for tougher sentences for offences of domestic violence, saying courts must give the message that "domestic violence is criminality and will be treated as seriously as an attack by a stranger".
Source:- The Times Tuesday 25 June page 10
Britain ‘ill informed about Sangatte’
Britain’s view that the Sangatte refugee centre in Calais attracts would-be illegal immigrants to Britain is "profoundly ill informed", and bears no relation to the experience of the thousands of refugees who pass through it, according to the first study of the centre.
As David Blunkett meets today with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy to demand the camp is closed down, the study casts doubt on the longstanding assumptions about Sangatte and its residents.
Only a small minority of the camp’s mainly Kurdish and Afghan residents were planning to reach Britain when they left their home countries, and even fewer knew Sangatte existed before they reached western Europe
"The idea that it is Sangatte that attracts the refugees reveals a huge historical and sociological misunderstanding not only of the reasons why people leave their homes, but of the conditions that precede their departure," the study’s author Smain Laacher said. "It also reveals ignorance of what it means to illegally cross countries."
Source:- The Guardian Tuesday 25 June page 8
Labour ‘diverting mental health cash’
More than £1.5 million earmarked to improve mental health is being diverted from its proper purpose, the shadow health secretary said yesterday.
Dr Liam Fox said the government was making headlines out of treatment of a small number of potentially dangerous patients, in advance of his speech to the second Conservative mental health summit.
"The Conservative party is making mental health a central part of its health policy agenda," he said.
Dr Fox added that "too many politicians seem to pay more attention to the potential dangers psychiatric patients pose than to the far more important issue of appropriate treatment for all patients".
Source:- Daily Telegraph Tuesday 25 June page 12
Carers who betrayed Victoria get a windfall
Social workers at Haringey social services are to be handed pay rises of more than six times the rate of inflation.
Salaries will be increased by around 12 per cent at Haringey, the council that failed to protect Victoria Climbie from months of abuse before her death.
Increases will mean the least experienced social workers will pick up an extra £2,600 a year, which will increase their pay to £24,106. A team leader with five years’ experience will see a pay rise of more than £4,300 to £36,559.
The two social workers central to the Climbie case, Lisa Arthurworrey and Angella Mairs, will be rewarded. Although suspended on full pay, the two are still employed by Haringey and will get the pay rises.
Victoria Climbie died in north London in February 2000 with 128 injuries after months of abuse at the hands of her great aunt Marie-Therese Kouao and her boyfriend Carl Manning.
Source:- Daily Mail Tuesday 25 June page 32
Scottish newspapers
Call for clarity on hospital waiting lists
The Scottish executive should publish greater clarity on the number of patients waiting for operations following the publication of a damning report by the auditor general.
The survey, carried out by Audit Scotland found errors including delays of up to 20 days in the recording of when patients were officially logged on waiting lists. Four health trusts were unable to explain why they were not routinely placing all patients on waiting lists.
Source:- The Scotsman Tuesday 25 June page 2
£400,000 in bursaries to lure trainee social workers
The Scottish executive has announced that a further £400,000 will be made available for graduates who train as social workers.
The announcement follows the launching of a £3.5 million action plan in April to tackle a growing crisis in recruitment to social work.
Source:- The Herald Tuesday 25 June page 9
Housing transfer policy suffers setback
The Scottish executive’s housing transfer policy has suffered setbacks in both Glasgow and the Shetland Islands.
Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) is experiencing a two month delay in developing its £4 billion financial plans, and 22 per cent of local tenants groups, which should manage houses on behalf of GHA, have failed to find their mandatory minimum of seven members.
Meanwhile, a similar scheme in the Shetland Isles has collapsed because the executive rejected the local authority’s proposal to sell their housing stock to the independent Shetlands Homes for just over £3 per house.
The executive says the proposal does not represent value for money. The proposed deal is worth only £7,000 while the executive values the properties at more than £8 million. Shetland Homes now say that it is "perfectly possible" that the transfer plan will collapse.
Source:- The Herald Tuesday 25 June page 6
Welsh newspapers
Care homes face cash-staff crisis
Independent care homes face a staffing and funding ‘time bomb’, which may have dire consequences for vulnerable older people in Wales’, a south Wales care home owner has warned.
Cheryl Wilson, vice chairperson of Care Forum Wales, the umbrella body representing independent care homes in the principality said that new research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation backs the forum’s view that the fees that councils are willing to pay are inadequate.
She warned too that there were serious problems with attracting and retaining good quality staff because local authority run-homes were able to offer higher wages and rewards.
Mario Kreft, the forum’s head of policy and public affairs, said the heart of the problem was the massive disparity between the money local authorities were prepared to pay to look after individuals in their own-run homes, and the much smaller figure they were prepared to support people with exactly the same needs and requirements in independent care homes.
Source:- South Wales Argus Monday 24 June page 11
‘Stop crack cocaine now’
Wales is woefully under-prepared for a surge in crack cocaine being imported into the country.
Iestyn Davies, director of the Welsh Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs, said that a national strategy on tackling drugs was needed and that there was a real threat of a flood of crack cocaine coming onto the market in Wales. He added that assuming the present strategies could go any way to dealing with crack cocaine was extremely naïve.
Source:- Western Mail Tuesday 25 June page 1
‘Help key’ in drug crime fight
Community treatment and rehabilitation for substance misuse must be improved to reduce drug-related crime say drug project workers.
Experts working with drug addicts in Wales are calling for sufficient resources to fund programmes that will provide effective treatment and help to reduce crime.
Steve Lyons, co-ordinator at Inroads Cardiff and Vale Street Drugs Project, which works with people trying to overcome drug addiction, said more funding needed to be put into tackling drug misuse at a local level.
Source:- Western Mail Tuesday 25 June page 9
