A daily summary of social care stories from the main newspapers

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