UK government ‘effectively allowed’ child sexual abuse, campaigners say

Campaigners have accused the UK government of in effect allowing child abuse to continue by having an “inconsistent and arbitrary” approach to implementing recommendations from a seven-year statutory inquiry.The claim was made at the high court in London, where a judge said a legal action against the Home Office could continue.The Maggie Oliver Foundation is taking action over the government’s alleged failure to adopt all the changes recommended by the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA), which conducted investigations between 2015 and 2022.At a hearing on Thursday, Mr Justice Kimblin allowed the legal action to continue, saying it was arguable that the foundation had a “legitimate expectation” that the government would implement the recommendations. The Home Office is defending the claim

Circumcision classed as potentially harmful practice in new CPS guidance

Circumcision has been classed as a potentially harmful practice in new official guidance for criminal prosecutors in England and Wales, but controversial plans to class it as possible child abuse have been dropped.The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided against including circumcision alongside dowry abuse, witchcraft and female genital mutilation in its new guidance on honour-based abuse, after objections from Jewish and Muslim groups when the plans were revealed by the Guardian.Instead it has included a similar section on circumcision in updated guidance on offences against the person. It says: “In certain circumstances, such as the procedure being carried out by those falsely claiming to be suitably qualified practitioners or carried out in non-sterile conditions, it can cross the line into a harmful practice.”Prosecutors are advised to consider child cruelty offences under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 or assault offences under the Offences against the Person Act 1861

Binge drinking rises sharply among gen Z in their early 20s

Binge drinking rates among gen Z have risen sharply since their teenage years, according to research that challenges their reputation as “generation sensible”.Almost seven in 10 (68%) 23-year-olds reported binge drinking in the past year, while nearly a third (29%) said they did so at least monthly, up from 10% at age 17.While drug use is relatively limited in the teenage years, by their 20s almost half (49%) have used cannabis and a third (32%) have tried harder drugs such as cocaine, ketamine and ecstasy, analysis by University College London (UCL) found.Researchers from the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) analysed data from nearly 10,000 people born across the UK in 2000-02 who are taking part in the Millennium Cohort Study.They compared substance use at 17 and again at 23 within the same group

Scientists laud potentially life-changing drug for children with resistant form of epilepsy

Scientists have hailed a potentially life-changing drug for children with a hard to treat form of epilepsy, after promising early clinical trial results.Dravet syndrome is a genetic disorder which causes treatment resistant epilepsy and is often accompanied by speech and developmental delays. About 3,000 people are thought to have the condition in the UK. Current treatments aim to control the number and severity of seizures, but often do not work.These preliminary trials, led by UCL and Great Ormond Street hospital (GOSH), found that the drug appeared to be safe and well tolerated by the 81 children taking part

Maternity services need investment in people and training, not another review | Letters

Once again, we are faced with a report detailing the failures in maternity services (Cruel comments, racism and cover-ups: key findings from England’s maternity care report, 26 February, 26 February), highlighting deficiencies in both clinical staffing and care environments. Maternity services in the NHS are in crisis, but this is not new information. As clinicians, we have been aware of these systemic pressures for many years. Reports from the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, now Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations, along with numerous other inquiries, have already identified the core issues. Collectively, they have produced some 748 recommendations that, if properly implemented, could meaningfully improve care

Head of carer’s allowance inquiry blames DWP ‘resistance’ for failure to fix crisis

The head of an official inquiry into carer’s allowance has criticised “forces of resistance” inside the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that undermined ministerial attempts to fix longstanding problems with the much-criticised benefit.Liz Sayce, whose review of carer’s allowance was published in November, said rather than owning the problems, some at the DWP had tried to “minimise” the extent of the department’s failures and sought to deflect blame for the crisis.An award-winning Guardian investigation last year revealed how the DWP failures led to hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers unwittingly running up huge debts after becoming trapped by an opaque, poorly administered and punitive system.Many carers suffered serious ill-health as a result, and hundreds were convicted of benefit fraud owing to their experiences over a period of years, which the review described as like being “at the whim of a faceless machine”.Sayce’s review of carer’s allowance overpayments in November found the blame lay with “systemic” issues at the DWP and emphasised carers should not be held responsible for falling foul of what it said were complex and confusing benefit rules