Disabled and terminally-ill children are going without vital equipment as the NHS and councils are not providing enough funding, research shows. BDF Newlife, formerly the Birth Defects Foundation, found the bodies spent just £60 a year per child - leaving 250,000 children waiting for equipment. The charity said children under two need £7,000 of specialist equipment, including beds and wheelchairs.
Treating children in adult psychiatric wards is a "national scandal", the Children's Commissioner has said. Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green told the BBC he fears children leave in a poorer condition than when they went in.
Responding to the Conservatives' plans to tackle personal debt, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable MP said:
Alan Lion is the Liberal Democrat choice to be our new district councillor.
Liberal Democrats at Essex County Council have called into question the Tory administration's plans for public consultation over proposals to reduce the number of mobile library services across the county. Conservatives at county hall are proposing that all mobile library stops within two miles of a static library will be dropped. The two miles is simply an arbitrary 'as the crow flies' distance which takes no account of the actual distance by road or the much longer bus routes.
Commenting on the Prime Minister's agreement with David Frost that the Iraq war is "a disaster", Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Menzies Campbell said "At long last the enormity of the decision to take military action against Iraq is being accepted by the Prime Minister. It could hardly be otherwise as the failure of strategy becomes so clear. If the Prime Minister accepts that it is a 'disaster' then surely Parliament and the British people who were given a flawed prospectus are entitled to an apology."
