Charity

• Charity launches community-led services to tackle social care pressures

  More person and community-led approaches are needed to help tackle increasing pressures on health and social care services, charity says.

  

• Charity shops face business rates relief ‘postcode lottery’

  Charity shops are ‘falling victim’ to inconsistent and unfair policies on business rates relief and waste management, charity representatives say.

  

• Investigation launched into serious failures at specialist school

  An investigation has been launched into a charity for the blind following ‘serious concerns’ over the safeguarding of vulnerable children and young people.

  

• Half a million older private renters are ‘invisible’ in housing policy

  Older private renters are being overlooked by housing policy despite being more likely to report cold and damp in their homes, a charity has warned today.

  

• ‘Unnecessary’ hospital admissions for terminally ill cost NHS £2.5bn

  There were over 1.6 million emergency hospital admissions for people in their last year of life during 2016 costing the NHS £2.5bn, a charity has warned today.

  

• Councils join new alliance to help people report child abuse

  Local councils have joined forces with police chiefs, charities and the Government to help encourage the public to report suspicions of child abuse.

  

• Cuts to trading standards putting older people at risk of fraud, warns charity

  Cuts to trading standards services are leaving millions of older people at risk of fraud, according to Age UK.

  

• Fuel poverty kills thousands every year, charity reveals

  The UK has the sixth-highest rate of excess winter deaths in Europe with thousands dying preventable deaths every year, fuel poverty charity finds.

  

• Should councils be launching their own charities?

  Mark Whitehead explores why Barnet has become the first council to set up a charity to support children in care.

  

• Third of dementia sufferers do not have care plan, charity warns

  One in three patients suffering from dementia do not get the NHS follow up support they’re supposed to because of a lack of care plan, older persons charity finds.