Thursday 1 April 2004

By Natasha Salari, Amy Taylor, Clare Jerrom and Alex
Dobson.

Polish paedophile jailed for killing girl while on
run
A Polish paedophile, who entered Britain on a false passport, has
been jailed for life for murdering a 12-year-old girl in her
home.
Andrezej Kunowski, a serial rapist, broke into the flat in west
London and strangled Katerina Koneva in 1997 while on the run from
charges of raping a 10-year-old girl in Poland.
He was caught last year when he was jailed for raping a 21-year-old
Korean student in London. He was jailed last year for nine
years.
Source:- The Independent Thursday 1 April page 6
Crime-hit town bans children after dark
Teenagers from a small market town are facing a curfew designed to
prevent anti-social behaviour.
The ban will be in force for the Easter school holidays and will
mean that anyone under 16 who is caught on the streets of Wigton,
Cumbria, after 9pm will be rounded up, reprimanded and taken home
by police.
Officers have imposed the curfew following government legislation
introduced in January to tackle anti-social behaviour.
Source:- The Daily Mail Thursday 1 April page 33
Sick and disabled ‘denied benefits’
MPs have raised concerns about the denial of benefits to
the sick and disabled.
The House of Commons public accounts committee has said there were
still “thousands of successful appeals each month” by
people turned down for incapacity and disability benefits. Last
year, almost 70,000 successful appeals against decisions on
sickness and disability benefit were recorded in one year.
Poverty campaigners have blamed the figures on over-complicated
bureaucracy, an obsession with output rather than quality,y and a
refusal to listen to the clients.
Source:- The Financial Times Thursday 1 April page 4
Home visits go as most GPs hand over out-of-hours
work
Patients may never again see a family doctor out of working hours
when a radical shake-up of general practice in half a century comes
into effect today.
Thousands of GPs are to give up out-of-hours care as practices hand
over responsibility to nurses, paramedics, local hospitals and the
NHS’ telephone advice service.
Under the new GP national contract, accepted by more than 25,000
doctors, 90 per cent of practices are relinquishing responsibility
for out-of-hours work.
Source:- The Times Thursday 1 April page 4
Judge refuses to strike off internet porn case
nurse
The first case brought by a new body seeking tougher sanctions on a
nurse disciplined by his professional body, has failed.
A high court judge yesterday rejected a call by the Council for the
Regulation of Healthcare Professionals for tougher action to be
taken against Steven Truscott, who was disciplined by the Nursing
and Midwifery Council for accessing pornography on the internet
while in charge of a ward of children.
Source:- The Times Thursday 1 April page 12
Labour losing the war on child drug use
Attempts to cut the number of children taking drugs in England are
failing, according to new figures released yesterday.
The latest government survey of children aged 11-15 showed that one
in five children took drugs last year, an increase of one per cent
on the previous year.
The survey covered 10,000 children in 321 schools. It also found
that a quarter of these children drank alcohol. This is also a one
per cent increase on last year.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph Thursday 1 April page 11
All three year olds eligible for free nursery
places
Every three-year-old is entitled to a part-time free nursery place
from today.
Free-nursery education for two-year-olds is only set to be for
those in the poorest families. Children’s minister Margaret Hodge
said that she wanted to extend free nursery education to 6,000
two-year-olds living in the poorest areas.
Source:- The Daily Telegraph Thursday 1 April page 13
Blair and Howard trade blows on migrant
scams
Tony Blair warned Michael Howard that he risked creating tension in
community relations after the Tory leader said that the allegations
of scams in Eastern Europe showed that Britain’s immigration system
was in a complete mess.
Howard demanded an independent public inquiry into who in the Home
Office dealt with warnings that migration checks were
systematically being waved in countries such as Romania and
Bulgaria.
Source:- The Guardian Thursday 1 April page 3
Passports to prosperity: business plans that guaranteed a
job in Britain
How thousands of Bulgarian workers used visa companies to side-step
the rules.
Source:- The Guardian Thursday 1 April page 3
Scottish newspapers
City sets watchdog on social work staff
A social work watchdog has been launched in Edinburgh following the
tragic death of Caleb Ness, which was
“avoidable”.
An all-party group of nine councillors has been appointed to review
and monitor the standards of the department’s work.
The formation of the new sub-committee comes five months after the
damning report into the death of the 11-week-old baby. An
independent report found failures “at almost every
level” of the system in place to protect children.
Source:- Evening News Wednesday 31 March
City nurses to battle on despite West Lothian
deal
Edinburgh nursery nurses have vowed to continue their strike for
better pay despite union members in West Lothian agreeing to return
to work.
West Lothian Council staff has become the latest to agree a local
deal on pay and conditions.
But nursery nurses in Edinburgh pledged yesterday to stick with the
other 19 local authority areas in fighting for a national
deal.
Source:- Evening News Wednesday 31 March
Carers ‘at the heart’ of health
policy
Carers were “very effective” in shaping the last
community care act, according to a report published by Edinburgh
University.
Academics at the university’s Centre for Research on Family
and Relationships found carers had a key role in influencing the
development of the Community Care Health (Scotland) Act 2002.
Deputy health minister Tom McCabe highlighted that more than
£21 million of funding is available this year for local
authorities, voluntary organisations and social inclusion
partnerships to support carers.
Source:- Evening News Wednesday 31 March
Thirty care homes close in a year
More than two care homes in Scotland are closing each month,
according to new figures.
Thirty homes for older people have shut during the course of a year
sparking fears that older people will have less choice as to where
they are cared for.
The new census shows that the majority of care home places across
Scotland are already taken with occupancy rates running as high as
99 per cent in Shetland.
Home owners blamed a cash crisis for the closure saying the fees
they are paid by local authorities are inadequate.
Source:- The Herald Thursday 1 April
Tower block residents face uncertain future
Residents of multi-storey flats in Glasgow will be forced to live
in damp and unsanitary conditions until a decision is made over
their possible demolition.
According to an internal document produced by the Glasgow Housing
Association, a “substantial programme of demolition” of
tower blocks across the city is planned.
The GHA has hinted that it is committed to upgrading only housing
stock which has a “long term future and ensuring that all
tenants within these properties have warm, dry and damp-free
homes”.
Source:- The Herald  Thursday 1 April
Welsh newspapers
Patient’s 96 hours on a trolley
A grandmother spent four days and nights on a trolley waiting for a
bed in a Swansea hospital.
Health chiefs from Morriston Hospital have apologised to the
unnamed woman for the 96-hour trolley wait, believed to be one of
the longest experienced in this country.
The woman had been taken to the hospital suffering from heart
problems and pneumonia.
Source:- Western Mail Thursday 1 April page 1
Kilshaw attacks US court
The woman at the centre of the original internet baby scandal has
criticised a US court ruling on the future of the twins she tried
to adopt.
An American woman, Tranda Wecker, twice offered her twin daughters
for sale via the internet. Judith Kilshaw and her husband tried to
adopt the babies, but they were taken into care and returned to the
USA.
A US court ruling has found that Wecker may have been wrongly
stripped of her parental rights, but Kilshaw says that any move to
return the twins to their natural mother would be wrong.
Source:- Western Mail Thursday 1 April page 7
NHS deficit doubles in one year
The NHS in Wales is being run under a shadow of mounting debt, as
it emerged that the annual deficit has doubled over the last
year.
The Auditor General for Wales, Sir John Bourn, highlights what he
describes as a ‘deficit culture’ in his annual NHS
finances report.
He also draws attention to the worrying reliance on agency nurses
that last year cost Wales £18 million – 1 per cent of the
total NHS bill.
Source:- Western Mail Thursday 1 April page 8