In Today's Papers

Prozac cleared for children aged eight despite fears of suicide risk
Children as young as eight can be given the antidepressant Prozac, the European Medicines Agency has ruled. It should only be given to children with moderate to severe depression and must be used alongside counselling.
Source:- The Independent, Thursday 8 June 2006, page 14
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Sentences for rapes after ‘intimacy’ cut
Rapists will receive lighter sentences if their victims withdraw their consent to sex at the last minute, according to new guidelines issued by judges yesterday.

Source:- The Times, Thursday 8 June 2006, page 1
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Housing benefits
Top-performing councils will be able to keep up to £2 million a year in profits from housing sales and rents to fund their own projects, Ruth Kelly, the communities and local government secretary said.
Source:- The Times, Thursday 8 June 2006, page 2
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Call to let doctors humanely end life without consent
Doctors should be able to end the lives of some of their terminally ill patients even if they have not given their consent, according to an expert on medical ethics.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph, Thursday 8 June 2006, page 11    

15,000 jobs face axe as NHS is struck down by £512 million deficit
Health secretary promises that she will be held accountable if she fails to balance the books next year.
Source:- The Times, Thursday 8 June 2006, page 6
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Lunchbox raiders
Angry parents marched on a primary school yesterday after teachers took crisps and chocolate from children’s lunchboxes in a crackdown on junk food.
Source:- The Daily Mirror, Thursday 8 June 2006, page 26

Scottish news

Free elderly care row hits courts over £1700 bill
The growing row over free personal care for elderly people is to go to the courts, with a test case challenging a council over a £1700 bill for a pensioner's meal service.
Pressure on councils to seek a definitive interpretation of the law has risen with the case of Mary Russell from Muirend, who has dementia.
Her lawyer, Cameron Fyfe, is acting for her family in suing East Renfrewshire Council over a food preparation bill of £1721, which she paid between May 2004 and November last year when she moved into a Whitecraigs care home.
Source:- The Herald, Thursday 8 June 2006
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Religions unite in attack on same-sex adoption
Allowing unmarried and same-sex couples to adopt children is no more than an ideologically driven "social experiment" which will have a negligible impact on the number of people coming forward to adopt, religious groups have told MSPs.

Instead of removing the bar on such couples adopting, they urged ministers to focus on encouraging married couples to adopt and improving the residential care for children who cannot be placed with a family.
Source:- The Herald, Thursday 8 June 2006
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Standards tsar to review public sector watchdogs
Professor Lorne Crerar, the outgoing convener of the Standards Commission for Scotland, will spend the next year examining the 50 regulatory bodies and ombudsmen that act as watchdogs for the public sector, such as Audit Scotland and the Care Commission.
Professor Crerar's task will be to look at how the system can be streamlined to deliver the best use of public money. It is likely to draw on work already under way in Holyrood's finance committee, which is looking at the various tsars who work on children's issues, freedom of information, public appointments, and the NHS.
Source:- The Herald, Thursday 8 June 2006
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TB outbreak kills three in care home
An NHS investigation has been launched into the linked deaths of three residents at the Eastercroft House home in Caldercruix near Airdrie killed by an outbreak of tuberculosis.
An outbreak-control team has been set up and two-thirds of staff and the 66 residents have been screened so far. Residents, families and visitors, as well as all staff members, have been informed of the situation and given the choice as to whether they undergo screening.
Source:- The Scotsman, Thursday 8 June 2006

 Courtroom chaos looms as more lawyers ban sex cases
Lawyers from two prominent bar associations have voted to join a boycott of sex crime cases over a legal aid pay dispute.
Members of the Hamilton and Edinburgh bar associations – like those of the Glasgow bar association last week - voted unanimously to stop taking on sex offence cases from August, unless a settlement can be reached with the executive over payments for legal aid.
The planned strike is targeting sex offence cases because people accused of such crimes are not allowed to cross-examine witnesses in court, so without a defence agent, trials cannot go ahead.
Source:- The Scotsman, Thursday 8 June 2006

Welsh news

No social care news today.