News round up: Children failed by health system, says watchdog

Children being failed by health system, says head of watchdog

Children in Britain are being failed by a culture that gives them low priority, exposing them to poor healthcare, knife crime and sexually transmitted diseases, according to the outgoing head of the Healthcare Commission.

Read more on this story in The Guardian

Business will donate £500m less to charity, says survey

Fresh evidence of how the credit crunch is hitting charities emerged today with a new poll showing that business donations to good causes are expected to be cut by almost £500m this year as a result of the economic downturn.

Binge drinking shame of Britain’s teenage girls

Two in three of the 1,600 under-18s who needed medical treatment after drinking binges last year were girls.

And the number of women of all ages needing treatment for alcohol poisoning has almost doubled to 14,000 a year since 2003, official figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats revealed.

A quarter of all the largest public-sector database projects, including the ID cards register, are fundamentally flawed and clearly breach European data protection and rights laws, according to a report published today.

Read more on this story in The Guardian