No need for elderly to sell home to pay care
bill
Elderly people will no longer be forced to sell their homes to
pay for care under government proposals to be unveiled next
week.
Ministers have drawn up a range of measures that would allow
middle-class pensioners to keep their property. Options could
include compulsory insurance paid throughout a career, or a one-off
payment of around £12,000 either at retirement or death. They are
contained in a long-awaited Green Paper discussion document
intended to tackle the spiralling cost of care for an ageing
population.
Read more on this story in The Daily
Telegraph
Cheshire Council 'wrote off girl' who never went to
secondary school
A girl who lived with her mentally ill mother was "effectively
written off" by social workers and never attended secondary school,
a local government ombudsman says in a scathing report published
tomorrow.
The former Cheshire county council failed "comprehensively and
spectacularly" to fulfil its responsibilities to the girl, now aged
20, who was considered bright and eager to learn, according to the
ombudsman, Anne Seex.
Read more on this story in The
Guardian
Why psychological therapies need a different kind of
state regulation
Psychotherapists and counsellors have a more intimate
relationship with patients and any state regulation 'by audit'
would be inappropriate, says James Antrican, chair of the United
Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy.
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Guardian
Counselling and psychotherapy must be state
regulated
New rules don't 'enslave' therapists or make types of practice
illegal – they're an acknowledgment of the reality of abuse, writes
Jonathan Coe, chief executive of Witness.
Read more on this story in The
Guardian
Food drives up cost of living, Joseph Rowntree
Foundation report reveals
Sharp rises in food prices have pushed up the minimum cost of
living twice as fast as the rate of inflation over the past year, a
report from the Joseph Rowntree foundation reveals.
The charity, which introduced the concept of a minimum income
standard in 2008, says it is now harder to live on a low income
than it was last year. Its minimum income standard calculates the
earnings needed to afford a socially acceptable standard of living
in the UK.
Read more on this story in The
Guardian