Safety concerns over chronic shortage of NHS health visitors

By Mithran Samuel on August 24, 2009 in Child safeguarding, Mental Health

Safety concerns over chronic shortage of NHS health visitors

A chronic shortage of NHS health visitors has resulted in newborn babies not being seen at home until they are almost four months old, according to the association that represents the profession.

Local managers have resigned in protest over patient safety in one London borough, while pleas for a recruitment drive have failed to deliver results, according to Norma Dudley, chair of the Community Practitioners’ and Health Visitors’ Association (CPHVA) in the capital.

Shortage of medicines sees patients being admitted to hospital

Patients are suffering “extreme distress” and are even being admitted to hospital due to a shortage of certain medicines, pharmacists have warned.
Read more on this story in The Daily Telegraph

Romanian fraudsters use trafficked babies and children for multi-million pound UK benefit scam

Children and babies as young as three months old are being trafficked into Britain to help foreign gangs milk the benefits system of millions of pounds.

The children, who are often sent here with their parents’ consent, are placed with unrelated adults and used to support fraudulent benefits claims involving fake employment records and forged immigration documents