Society daily 16.03.11

Sign up to Society daily email briefing Today's top SocietyGuardian stories • UK unemployment rises to 2.53 million • Public sector job cuts top 132,000 • Ministers don't see plight of jobless, says TUC • Iain Duncan Smith: We made errors on poverty • Professor disputes patient safety figures • Taxes 'must rise by £82bn a year' to fund pension and health costs • Cuts blog: Hoarders, spinners, homelessness, a family affair • Harriet Fraad: Profiting from mental ill-health All today's SocietyGuardian stories Other news • Local authorities are to put up the deposit to allow first-time buyers to get on the housing ladder , according to Inside Housing. The newly announced 'local lend a hand' initiative aims to free up social and affordable housing by making it easier for people to buy their own homes. • Amanda McLean , chief executive of the Institute of Fundraising, has resigned with immediate effect after only four months in the job, reports Third Sector. McLean, who took up the post in November last year, said she decided to leave so that she could spend more time with her family. • More than one in three people admitted to hospital across the UK are at risk of malnutrition , according to the BBC. Nutrition charity BAPEN, which surveyed nearly 10,000 patients, said it was concerned about a rise in malnutrition among people admitted from their own homes. It said cuts in community services, including meals-on-wheels, were likely to put extra pressure on hospitals. On my radar ... • This report from Mashable, Japan Earthquake & Tsunami: 7 Simple Ways to Help (thanks @rachelbeer ) • NHS reform. So the BMA has delivered its verdict on the health and social care bill . Here's a full list of the motions passed at yesterday's special representative meeting . We've launched a new package on the future of the health service, including this video, in which social affairs editor Randeep Ramesh speaks to health industry experts about the government proposals. According to analysis for the Guardian by Kieran Walshe, professor of health policy and management at Manchester Business School and an adviser to the Commons health select committee, GPs could more than double their income to £300,000 a year under the reforms. Patrick Wintour reports this morning that four Tory MPs – Dr Sarah Wollaston, Charles Walker, Douglas Carswell and Anne Main - have signed a motion critical of the bill . I loved the Daily Mash take on the story, "Doctors have rejected an opportunity to make more money, it has emerged." Meanwhile, on the Independent's blog, Oliver Wright says listen to your doctor about a hernia but not the NHS : "Doctors have a very clear vested interest in this subject – and what they want may not necessarily be in the best interest of us the patient." Paul Corrigan's blog gives the historical context on the politics of NHS reform : "In 2001-7 the BMA regularly had meetings and passed motions against new Labour's maximum waiting time targets. The rhetoric was just as fierce as it was yesterday, and the pledge to get the government to change its mind was just as powerful. They were very angry about targets for several years. The difference between then and now is that then the Government had a rock solid mandate from the public to reduce maximum waiting times. This was not just a matter of a manifesto commitment. Whenever there was an opinion poll, election or discussion with the public about what mattered to them regarding the NHS, the problem experienced by the public was long waits. They wanted something done about them." And on the Health Policy Insight blog, editor Andy Cowper applauds the BMA for stopping short of opposing the entire bill and voting against a proposed no confidence motion in Andrew Lansley: "This is clearly the right move, with the Lib Dem policy spanner in the political works already. It also leaves the BMA leadership, who may not be right on every issue, backed by their members and ready to fight another day - with a nuclear option still in their armoury." • The bonfire of the quangos . Francis Maude, writing in the Sun today , claims that his mission to "drive out inefficiency" will save not £1bn from the public purse as the prime minister had previously promised, but £30bn over four years. As @FlipChartFT points out : "No data of course. This is almost certainly rubbish!" • I'm sure Maude would applaud the initiative of charity worker Anna Young , who has launched an online campaign to raise funds to save her job. Third Sector reports that Young's post, as a children's worker at a domestic violence charity, is set to be axed this month . So she has set up a page on the JustGiving site in an attempt to raise £15,000 to pay her for a further year. Has it really come to this? • This post by Johann Hari on the cuts vs savings debate , in which he says David Cameron is using his PR nous to rebrand the cuts programme: "Let's start with the word "cuts". It is not a pejorative. I have cut the amount of food I eat over the past year, and I'm proud of it. I have cut the amount of time I spend reading fiction, and I'm dismayed by it. The word neutrally and aptly describes both. It means simply "to reduce the size, extent or duration of". The word "savings" means something different – and they are not synonymous ... If Cameron coaxes the BBC – and others – into rebranding these acts as "savings", he has coaxed them into a lie." • The armchair army , an excellent idea from the Creative Cafe blog, which will enable people with disabilities to join in the anti-cuts protest on 26 March . As poster Jill explains: "I have been wanting to go on the recent protests against the Cuts and attacks on disabled people here in the UK but have not been able to go out. I just get too weak and tired and also too scared of being pushed around after seeing the way Jody McIntyre was pulled out of his wheelchair and dragged across the ground. If that happened to me I wouldn't be able to breathe and would suffocate. Even so I have avidly followed the protests by #ukuncut and other groups online and am in solidarity with all of us who oppose the cuts and believe that the rich should be made to stop evading their taxes before the poor and disabled should be made to lose vital services and benefits." (Thanks to the brilliant Broken of Britain Facebook page ) • Happiness. Service users from Platform 51 (the charity formerly known as YWCA) are today taking part in a consultation event today on the happiness index . • This lovely interview with business woman and volunteer Rani Kaur on Priya Mulji's blog, in which she describes her experience of being an Asian woman with MS . Kaur describes herself as a social media advocate and has set up a Facebook page and Twitter account aimed at Asians with MS. But I did like her piece of advice to people who suspect they might have MS: "Avoid Internet Search Engines." • A superb idea for an iPhone app from Dogs Trust. iMutt allows users to "look after an impossibly cute virtual rescue dog for five days" . In today's SocietyGuardian supplement • Sharp increase in suicide rates in Northern Ireland • For social workers, the little successes make it worthwhile • Family life becomes a work of art in NHS waiting rooms All the features and comment from today's Society supplement On the Guardian Professional Networks • What can NHS managers at doomed primary care trusts and strategic health authorities do to further their careers ? • For health services that want to split from the NHS , the initial separation is just the beginning of a difficult journey. • Two decades of outsourcing government IT has left the state sector short of skilled staff able to run projects, Parliament's public administration committee has heard. 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