Innocence recast in London's NW11

Health Secretary given rough ride at RCN conference as Labour tries to take advantage

Nurses heckled and laughed at Health Secretary Andrew Lansley today after he claimed clinical staffing levels in the NHS had increased.

This cloying 1962 comedy is reminiscent of the dire 1980s sitcom Only When I Laugh, but without James Bolam's comic timing.

What do the 2012 Olympics and mayoral elections have in common? Here's a clue: it's not London. Other places are voting on mayors, too. The answer is that they are being vilified in a nasty, negative and condescending way by the metropolitan chatterers, who regard both as impediments to the smooth functioning of their gilded lives and just the latest examples of the "dumbing-down" of modern life.

Key workers stand a much better chance of getting on the property ladder than they did five years ago - but only if they live outside the south of England, a report revealed today.

Our series of in-depth reports this week on the state of nursing in Britain has drawn a huge and impassioned response from readers both inside and outside the profession who share the concern about the quality of nursing in the NHS. Many offer prescriptions for improvements; others say that, for all the money spent by the last government, staffing remains inadequate and is even being cut.

Day three: It is widely agreed that something has gone wrong with nursing. But are our nurses at fault? Or is Britain suffering from a wider malaise?

The second part of our week-long series on the crisis of caring in British nursing addresses the question of what, precisely, has gone wrong

Special Report, Day one: NHS organisation is at the top of the political agenda. But what about the vital basics that more and more patients say are being neglected?

The National Health Service is one of the biggest employers in the world, and it would be unrealistic to expect everything to run perfectly everywhere all the time. Nor was there an age, except in folk memory perhaps, when all nurses were both supremely competent and kind. Scandals have punctuated the history of nursing, even as the image of ministering angel has gained hold. Whether it is comparison with a non-existent past or simply the higher expectations of today, however, reports of inadequate, neglectful and even callous care by those paid to look after the sick have proliferated in recent years.

NHS staff numbers in England have shown their biggest fall in 10 years, with nursing posts among those cut, official figures show.

Hospital wards caring for elderly patients have up to a third fewer nurses working on them than other wards, research suggests.

Unions attacked the Government today after ministers confirmed that NHS and other public sector workers will have their pay frozen for a second year unless they earned £21,000 or less.