Heroin on the NHS

Heroin on the NHS
Police chiefs were told yesterday that heroin should be made available on the NHS to help cut crime and improve treatment.
Nottinghamshire Police deputy chief constable Howard Roberts made the comments at the Association of Chief Police Officers annual conference. Currently the drug is being given to addicts as a last resort in three pilot schemes.
Source:- Daily Mail, Thursday 23 November 2006, page 4

Couple see child taken as son in pond fall lay dying
A couple are bidding to be reunited with their child who was taken into care after their other child drowned in what a coroner ruled yesterday was an accident. Social workers removed the child, from Bicester, Oxfordshire, the day after their sibling’s death.
Source:- Daily Mail, Thursday 23 November 2006, page 41

HIV rise blamed on complacency
A record number of gay men were diagnosed with HIV last year, fuelling concerns that complacency over safe sex has set in due to the success of anti-retroviral treatments.
Health Protection Agency figures show there were 2,356 new diagnoses among gay men in 2005, and campaigners said younger men did not face the spectre of people decimated by HIV and AIDS as previous generations.
Source:- The Independent, Thursday 23 November 2006, page 23

‘Compensation’ for workers forced to retire
Age Concern is bringing a case to the High Court next month which may mean workers forced to retire at 65 could be entitled to compensation.
It will challenge laws that allow companies to force employees to retire at 65 and only grant a single meeting to discuss their willingness to stay on.
Source:- Daily Telegraph, Thursday 23 November 2006, page 14

Jobless poor ‘abandoned’ in drive to fight child poverty
A Conservative policy review has called for party to prioritise tackling relative poverty, not absolute poverty, and criticised the government’s child poverty target.
Greg Clark MP, who is reviewing the party’s approach to poverty, called for it to abandon the “outdated Tory nostrum” that the state’s job was to tackle only absolute poverty.
He said the child poverty target – set at 60 per cent of median income levels – risked prioritising help for less poor families rather than the poorest.
Source:- Financial Times, Thursday 23 November 2006, page 4

Pay rises claim half of extra £5.5bn
Almost half the £5.5bn increase in NHS spending last year went on pay, Department of Health figures show.
New contracts for GPs and consultants plus the Agenda for Change system for nurses are believed to be behind the figures.
Source:- Financial Times, Thursday 23 November 2006, page 2

Doctors fear more elderly may die as flu vaccine runs short
Delays in supplying flu vaccines to doctors’ surgeries could result in more older people dying from the virus this winter, GPs have warned.
As of the end of October, 37 per cent of people over 65 had been vaccinated while only nine million of 15.2 million promised doses have been sent to doctors’ surgeries.
Source:- Daily Mail, Thursday 23 November 2006, page 2

Ecstasy and LSD could be downgraded
Ministers are considering downgrading Ecstasy and LSD to Class B drugs on the advice of the government’s chief scientific adviser.
Source:- Daily Mail Thursday 23 November 2006 page 4

Milburn proposes vouchers to end ‘ghetto education’
Parents of children in low-performing schools should be given credits to allow them to move to better schools, former health secretary Alan Milburn has said.
The credit could not be topped up but could be used in any state school, which would have to expand to accept children with the vouchers.
Source:- The Independent, Thursday 23 November 2006, page 21

Half of secondaries failing pupils
More than half of secondary schools in England are failing to give children a good education Ofsted said yesterday. The inspectorate said there was an “unacceptable” gap between the best and worst schools.
Source:- The Guardian, Thursday 23 November 2006, page 1

Welsh news

Prison sentence ‘likely’ for paedophile
A paedophile faces being locked up after a second jury found him guilty of sex charges against a child. Melvyn Moreton, 38, was found guilty of eight counts of indecent assault and indecency against a child.
Source:- South Wales Echo, Thursday 23 November 2006

£76m home care package follows U-turn
First minister Rhodri Morgan tried to make amends for the Assembly government abolishing its pledge to abolish home care charges for the disabled on the ground that it was too expensive yesterday. He announced a £76m package of measures to assist the disabled which he said would make more of a difference than the pledge.
Source:- icWales, Thursday 23 November 2006