1 Patients have the right to travel for treatment the EU’s top health official has said. In an interview in the Financial Times, Markos Kyprianou, the EU Health Commissioner, said that he would act to implement the right of patients to “shop” for treatment across the 25 member states.
2 The poor must not be penalised by energy suppliers, a coalition of consumer groups and charities said after the increase in energy prices. Millions of low income families use pre-paid meters which cost them more than paying by quarterly bill.
3 Fish and fruit went on the menu in school canteens under Government guidelines to promote healthy eating. Free drinking water, oily fish and at least two servings of fruit and vegetables a day have replaced chocolate and crisps.
4 Statistics must be free from Home Office meddling to restore trust, the Statistics Commission said. Its report concluded that ministers, their advisers and senior officials should not be directly involved in compiling and publishing crime statistics. The Home Office rejected allegations of ministerial interference.
5 Some key workers fare better than others on London weighting, according to an Incomes Data Services study. Better qualified and more experienced police, teachers and nurses can take home up to £6,300 extra while some public sector workers have inner London allowances of £2,000 to £3,200.
6 A university is offering a discount of 20 per cent for students who pay all their tuition fees up front. But those who are borrowing from the Student Loans Company to pay for their education at Gloucestershire University will not receive the same discount.
7 Serious offenders are being released from prison without assessments of their risk to the public. A report by the chief inspectors of police, probation and prisons found that four prisoners out of ten are free for long periods before their monitoring has been agreed.
8 The teaching of arithmetic and reading will be overhauled under measures announced by the Education Secretary, Alan Johnson. Children will be expected to know times tables by the age of 8 and reading will be taught by phonics, learning the sounds of letters rather than of words.
9 Network Rail is planning to expand its freight service, taking 12,000 lorry journeys off the road. An extra 120 freight trains a day should be able to use the railways
by 2012, at a cost of up to £500 million.
10 Black teachers are discriminated against and bullied, according to focus group interviews for a report by London Metropolitan University. In addition, a report from the School Governors’ One-Stop Shop, a charity, suggests that people from ethnic minorities are deterred from becoming governors by the misconception that only middle-class white people are wanted.
11 Schools are heading for a shortage in head teachers, according to findings by the General Teaching Council in England. More than a third of head teachers intend to retire in the next five years, but only 4 per cent of teachers want to become heads in that time.
12 Many treatments used in A&E departments are untested, a public health expert told the British Association for the Advancement of Science’s festival. Meanwhile, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has claimed that millions of pounds could be saved if doctors use appropriate medicines and stop out-of-date treatments.
13 The number of children being taken into care has risen by 20 per cent in the past ten years, and the cost of dealing with them has reached £1.65 billion a year, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Department for Education and Skills.