The Government is drawing up plans to stop food shortages from affecting hospital patients in the event of a no-deal Brexit, according to official documents.Doctors and nurses should also be ordered to provide "messages of continuity and reassurance" to patients in the event the UK crashes out of Europe without…

Activities for poorer children during the school holidays are to receive a multimillion-pound funding boost.Thousands more disadvantaged children are set to benefit under the £9 million programme announced by the Department for Education (DfE).Organisations from across England are being invited to bid for a share of the money to deliver…

Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes has lifted the barrier for 260 child refugees to come to the UK.Ms Nokes made the announcement that she was removing the cut-off date criterion from applications for the most vulnerable unaccompanied children to seek sanctuary in a written ministerial statement.The move means the stalled plan…

Universal Credit could have potentially "disastrous" consequences for disabled people, a cross-party group of MPs has warned.The Commons Work and Pensions Committee called on the Government to take urgent action to avoid vulnerable people being forced into "miserable hardship".It accused the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of making a…

The Government has admitted that more than 4,500 disabled people were wrongly stripped of benefits despite having "good reasons" for missing assessments.Work and pensions minister Sarah Newton revealed they will now receive back payments after a review by her department.It comes just over a year after a court ruling in…

Over a third of health boards in Scotland need intervention after dropping below expected standards, MSPs have been told.In a letter to the health committee at Holyrood, NHS Scotland chief executive Paul Gray (pictured) said five health boards have been escalated to “Stage 3 or above” on the NHS Board…

Labour has blamed the sharp rise in deaths of homeless people on the "results of Government decisions, Government choices" after figures showed almost 600 died last year.After the death of a man sleeping rough outside the entrance to Parliament earlier this week, shadow housing minister Melanie Onn (pictured) accused the…

Achieving parity of access to treatments for mental health patients compared with that for people with physical conditions will be the work of a generation, the Health Secretary has warned.Matt Hancock said he understood the urgent need to make improvements but stressed that achieving equality of access between mental and…

Scotland will recruit an extra 80 mental health professionals to work with children and young people with a £4 million investment.Psychologists, nurses, allied health professionals and administration workers are being hired to try and reduce the pressure on Scottish mental health services.The funding announcement coincides with the publication of a…

Nicola Sturgeon has branded the UK Government's immigration proposals "an act of vandalism" as she called for a visa allowing Europeans to work in Scotland even if they earn less than £30,000.Home Secretary Sajid Javid has announced that low-skilled workers and those earning under the £30,000 threshold will no longer…

Tens of thousands of migrants could come to the UK to work for up to a year under the Government's proposed post-Brexit immigration system.The new measure, which would be in place until at least 2025, is designed to act as a "safety valve" for the economy and protect sectors reliant…

Reforms to make it simpler for care homes and hospitals to hold vulnerable people who cannot consent to treatment or care have cleared their first Commons hurdle - despite cross-party opposition and concern.Ministers were warned that the measures in the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill could "potentially give private companies the…