HOME HEALTH CHECKS PLAN FOR ELDERLY
Vulnerable elderly people in England could be offered safety checks to identify health risks in their homes, under a Labour plan to cut the cost of unnecessary admissions to hospitals.
The scheme forms part of a 10-Year Plan for the NHS being unveiled by shadow health secretary Andy Burnham, which also features 5,000 new "homecare workers" to help people leaving hospital and enable the terminally-ill to die at home, as well as changes to social care budgets to end the culture of 15-minute visits to frail and isolated older people.
Labour leader Ed Miliband will warn that "the future of the NHS is at stake" in the May 7 general election, with victory for the Conservatives threatening to usher in changes which would leave the service "unrecognisable".
TORIES TO SLASH BENEFITS CAP BY £3K
A fresh squeeze on benefits will be introduced "within the first few days" of a Tory general election victory, David Cameron has promised in the latest round of campaigning ahead of May's poll.
The Prime Minister said last year that he wanted to reduce the annual benefits cap introduced by the Coalition from £26,000 to £23,000 to provide another £135 million towards funding three million apprenticeships by 2020.
Regulations to tighten the limit - which are expected to mean an additional 40,000 households seeing a reduction in state help - would be among the first priorities of a Conservative administration, he has indicated.
100 DAYS TO GO TO GENERAL ELECTION
The countdown has begun on the final 100 days to a general election which is shaping up to be unlike any other in recent history.
Experts are uncertain not only about which party is likely to come out with most seats on May 7, but even about whether a viable coalition will be there to be formed.
The failure of either of the two big parties to establish any kind of a lead, the polling collapse of the Liberal Democrats and the surge in support for Ukip, the Scottish National Party and the Greens have combined to make the 2015 poll less of a two-horse race to the winning line and more like a kind of random government generator.
POOREST 'WORST HIT BY REFORMS'
A major academic study has found that the poorest in society have been worst affected by the Government's tax and benefits changes.
The report found that the Government's intentions that the rich should contribute proportionately more to repairing the nation's finances "have not been realised".
The social policy study by academics from the London School of Economics (LSE), Manchester and York universities also predicted that poverty will increase in future years.
POISONED SPY INQUIRY SET TO OPEN
A long-awaited public inquiry into the death of poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko is finally set to open today, more than eight years after his death.
Inquiry chairman Sir Robert Owen will open the proceedings at the Royal Courts of Justice following years of conspiracy theories, allegations of state murder and legal wrangling.
Mr Litvinenko died in November 2006 after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 while meeting two Russian men - one a former KGB officer - at the Millennium Hotel in London's Grosvenor Square.
UK ECONOMY 'TO SHOW 2.6% GROWTH'
The UK is expected to post its best annual growth since before the recession when official gross domestic product (GDP) figures are published today.
GDP is forecast by a number of experts to have grown by 2.6% for the year, the same level as in 2007 and up from 1.7% in 2013, though quarterly expansion is believed to have slowed down for the last three months.
Fourth quarter growth for 2014 is pencilled in at 0.6%, down from 0.7% in the third quarter and 0.8% in the second quarter.
THOUSANDS REMEMBER HOLOCAUST DEAD
Thousands of people will gather across the country today to remember the millions killed in the Holocaust on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
Senior politicians, dignitaries and religious leaders will join survivors in central London for a service on Holocaust Memorial Day.
Security will be tight for the ceremony with the anniversary coming less than three weeks after a terrorist attack in a Kosher supermarket in Paris killed four people in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings.
RULING DUE ON 'HAMZA CONSPIRATOR'
A terror suspect accused of conspiring with hook-handed extremist Abu Hamza will learn today if British authorities breached his human rights by extraditing him to the United States.
The European Court of Human Rights is to rule on the case of paranoid schizophrenic Haroon Aswat, who was sent to New York in October after the US government gave assurances about his treatment.
Lawyers for the 40-year-old from from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, say that the assurances, which led the High Court and ECHR to lift a block on his extradition, were inadequate and his removal breached Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
LUNG CANCER DEATH RATE IS RISING
Lung cancer death rates among European women are expected to overtake those of breast cancer for the first time this year.
The trend is largely driven by women in the UK and their long history of smoking, say researchers.
Predicted lung cancer incidence for women in Europe is set to rise by 9% between 2009 and 2015, reaching a level of 14.24 per 100,000 of population.
SOCIAL SERVICES INVESTIGATION URGED
MPs and foster carers have called for an investigation into claims a social services department wrongly removed vulnerable children.
The calls come after Norfolk County Council's children's services department - branded inadequate in an Oftsed inspection two years ago - suspended a team manager over allegations that he removed a child from a foster carer without evidence of deliberate harm.
The Norfolk Foster Carers' Association (NFCA) said it had been contacted by dozens of parents and foster parents making similar claims over the last four years.
