MPs criticise behaviour of senior DWP officials over carer’s allowance scandal

MP’s have criticised the “absolutely unacceptable behaviour” of senior welfare officials over the carer’s allowance scandal in which hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers were unfairly landed with huge debts.Sir Peter Schofield, the permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions, came under fire on Wednesday from a select committee, which accused him of giving out “a lot of blancmange” over the DWP’s response to the scandal.An independent review into the overpayments scandal published in November found that longstanding and “unacceptable” systemic DWP leadership failures, poor benefit design and unlawful internal staff guidance were at the root of the problems.As well as inadvertently running up debts of thousands of pounds, carers who received overpayments often felt so desperate they contemplated suicide, the review found. It described the system as like being “at the whim of a faceless machine”

Alan Woodhouse obituary

My friend Alan Woodhouse, who has died aged 92, was the longest serving Samaritans volunteer in the history of the organisation, which offers support to anyone struggling to cope or at risk of taking their own lives.Alan joined the Liverpool and Merseyside branch when it was founded in 1960, and was still answering telephones there 60 years later. He was appointed MBE for his service in 2017 and retired in 2020.Samaritans was founded in 1953 in London by the Rev Chad Varah. Its second branch was set up in the crypt of St Nicholas Church, Liverpool Pier Head, and when it opened on 1 March 1960 Alan staffed the first overnight shift

The return of measles: how a once-vanquished disease is spreading again

The measles outbreak in South Carolina now stands at 664 cases, more than doubling in a few weeks, officials said this week. The highly contagious virus has also spread onward to North Carolina, Ohio and Washington state, and similar outbreaks are unfurling in Arizona and Utah as well.The outbreak, which first began in Texas a year ago this week, has spread to most US states – and as the US passes the one-year mark, its measles-elimination status will probably end, a symbol indicating an expected wave of year-round preventable disease. The outbreak has been plagued by misinformation, with Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services and longtime vaccine critic, framing measles vaccination as a personal choice and promoting unproven treatments.The vast majority of those infected are children, and most of them did not receive the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR vaccine)

UK glaucoma cases will rise to 1.6m by 2060 amid ‘demographic timebomb’, experts say

New estimates predict at least 1.6 million people in the UK will be living with glaucoma, the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide, by 2060.The figure is much higher than the current 1.1 million people estimated to have the condition, research published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology suggests.The sharp rise will be driven by an increasingly ageing population and growth in the proportion of higher-risk ethnically diverse groups, prompting a need for an expansion in eye health services to meet demand

Michael Baron obituary

The London solicitor Michael Baron, who has died aged 96, was instrumental in changing the lives of autistic people for the better. At a time when autism was little known or understood, in 1962 he co-founded the UK’s leading autistic charity. As its first chair, he was the driving force in publicising the condition and raising funds.He helped set up the world’s first autism-specific school in 1965 and the first residential community for autistic adults in 1974. As one of a group of lawyers, he campaigned for the Education (Handicapped Children) Act in 1970, which gave all children, regardless of disability, the right to an education

Educational background key indicator of immigration views in UK, study finds

Rightwing movements are struggling to gain support among graduates as education emerges as the most important dividing line in British attitudes towards politics, diversity and immigration, research has found.A study from the independent National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) found people with qualifications below A-level were more than twice as likely to support rightwing parties compared with those with qualifications above.The Demographic Divides report says: “A person with no educational qualifications had around 2 times the odds of voting for either the Conservatives or Reform UK than someone with a university degree or higher. This is independent of other factors, including financial precarity, so those without a degree are more likely to support rightwing parties in the UK even after adjusting for their financial situation.“If one wanted to predict whether a person voted for parties of the right in the UK, knowing their educational background would give them a very good chance of making a correct prediction