CQC head to resign; at-risk children; CRB checks; welfare services stretched

Baroness Young to resign from CQC

The chairman of the health and social care regulator, which was branded “toothless” after a report in to hospital standards, is to resign.

Baroness Young will leave her position with the Care and Quality Commission (CQC) in February of next year.

Read more on this story in The Times

Nearly 127,000 children forced to have criminal record checks each year

More than 125,000 teenagers are now having their backgrounds checked each year, official figures show, even if they just help younger pupils at school or volunteer as sports coaches.

Young people whose parents are childminders must also be vetted for criminal convictions because of the supposed risk they pose to toddlers being looked after at their family home, while some students on social work courses must pay to find out if they are deemed a danger by the state.

Read more on this story in The Telegraph

Welfare services will struggle to cope with ‘epidemic’ of stress and loneliness

While most Britons are “just about coping” with the effects of the recession, the analysis by the Young Foundation into the nation’s mental wellbeing found that seven million people already suffered from a “severe” lack of social support.

The authors of the report, called Sinking and Swimming – Understanding the Nation’s Unmet Needs, warn that Britain is “brittle,” with millions more at risk of sinking into depression and despair.

Read more on this story in The Telegraph

Obese children taken off at-risk register after genes found to be at fault

Two children considered to be at risk of abuse because they are severely obese have been removed from the protection register after scientists discovered that they carry a newly identified genetic abnormality that explains their weight.

Evidence from a ground-breaking study has convinced social workers that the children’s obesity was not caused by parental neglect or deliberate overfeeding but by a missing segment of DNA. The cases of another two children on the at-risk register have also been placed under review, after research showed them to have the same genetic deletion.

Read more on this story in The Times