By Stuart Adam and Mike BrewerThis report provides a comprehensive, quantitative analysis of trends in child-contingent support from the mid-1970s to the introduction of the new tax credits, and relates this to changes in tax and benefit policy, the characteristics of households with children and the costs of raising children. Drawing on a large-scale survey spanning the last 28 years, the authors analyse entitlements to child-contingent tax and benefit for thousands of households with children and the costs of raising children. The report examines how support has varied across households and over time, it separates the impact of policy from socio-economic changes and compares government support for children with available estimates of the actual costs of children.

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Doctors quit medicine because they feel undervalued by the National Health Service according to a report from the British Medical Association. The first ever report into why doctors give up careers in medicine, says they feel that a lack of professional and emotional support and an unacceptable work-life balance combine to make working in the NHS intolerable.The study is based on interviews with fourteen men and women who graduated from medical school in 1995 but then decided to give up medicine. It says poor working conditions, such as cold on-call rooms and a lack of food, were seen by doctors as signs of how little they were valued.The problems cited by the doctors were not to do with medicine itself but connected with working in the NHS. One frequent frustration was the shortage of resources, which meant doctors could not give patients the standard of care they wanted. The long working hours and a lack of opportunity to train part-time also had a devastating effect.Quotes from interviewees included, “I was just married and wanted to see my husband but when you work one night on, one off, how can you have a relationship?” Another said, “In medicine you have to do your five years and probably another five, six years before you’re actually qualified to a high enough grade to get part-time work,” and “There were weeks when I was working well over 100 hours.”

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A new report and fact pack have been published to try to break the links between debt and social exclusion. The launch was linked with a call for action in every local area to help families on low incomes avoid debt and the poverty it can trap them in.The call came from the Minister for Regeneration, Jeff Rooker as the Social Exclusion Unit published “Action on Debt”, which highlights how decision-makers can act to help the Government in the drive to cut the crippling personal, economic and social costs of debt.

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