Social services face review over rapist father

Authorities face inquiry over rapist who made daughters pregnant 19 times

An investigation has been launched into the failings of police and social services in the case of a father who made his two daughters pregnant 19 times during almost 30 years of rape and physical abuse.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was given 25 life sentences yesterday. He will serve a minimum of 19 years and six months in prison.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Real cost of Treasury gamble – a £37bn cut in services from 2011

Labour is to slash its public spending plans by £37bn after the next general election, analysis of the government’s emergency budget proposals revealed yesterday.

The figure far outweighs the level of cuts which Labour claimed the Tories would inflict on public services if they had won the 2005 election.

The new era of austerity for public services after 10 years of growth will require voluntary redundancies, limited pay rises and efficiency drives.

‘Love’ banned on the wards

BARMY officials will BAN nurses from calling patients “love” or “dearie”.

Elderly people should be treated “respectfully” and be asked how they prefer to be addressed, according to the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Read more on this story in The Sun

Dying patients ‘not being treated with respect’

Dying patients are not being treated with the dignity and respect they deserve, an official report has concluded.

Read more on this story in The Times

‘Only a matter of time …’

Amid the review and recriminations following the death of Baby P, an experienced social worker describes a caseload so overwhelming that tragedy is a daily possibility

Children’s services may now be too big

Opinion: Estelle Morris

I don’t want to add to the thousands of column inches already written about the recent child abuse case in Haringey or to speculate about the outcome of the many reports that have been commissioned. In time, they will be published, and we will determine to learn the lessons. The child whose death is at the centre of all this will remain in the public memory, but the national debate will move on.

Read more on this story in Society Guardian

Green light for care law overhaul

Ministers are giving the go-ahead for a fundamental reform of the “perplexing” law governing adult social care in England and Wales, pulling together more than 30 acts of parliament passed over 60 years.

The overhaul will aim also to rid the statute book of outdated and demeaning terms, such as “dumb and crippled persons”, “handicapped” and “suffer[ing] from congenital deformity”.

Read more on this story in Society Guardian

Whistleblower nurse could be struck off for Panorama exposé of appalling abuse of elderly patients

A nurse who exposed appalling neglect of the elderly at an NHS hospital began a fight to save her career today.

Margaret Haywood, 58, faces a series of disciplinary charges over a secret film she made for a BBC Panorama programme.

Read more on this story in The Daily Mail