The proposed minimum alcohol price would substantially curtail many supermarket drinks deals, according to Guardian analysis. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA
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Today's top SocietyGuardian stories
• Minimum alcohol price could rise above 40p a unit
• Scotland weighs up level of alcohol minimum pricing
• How Lansley and drinks industry lined up against alcohol pricing moves
• Outbreak of deadly flu hits care homes for elderly
• NHS employers warn George Osborne against imposing local pay rates
• Child benefit changes will force 500,000 extra tax self-assessments
• Pensioners deserve better, luncheon clubbers tell George Osborne
• Polly Toynbee: A budget for Tory blowhards and Redwood dreamers
• Leak shows A4e managers knew of potential fraud in 2009
• John Prescott: Police commissioner candidates shouldn't have to buy democracy
• Brian Kellett: NHS cuts and staff reductions: is it any wonder nurses are so unhappy?
All today's SocietyGuardian stories
On the Guardian Professional Networks
• Glyn Gaskarth explains why Eric Pickles has proved himself to be the most effective minister in cabinet
• Author Nye Wright explains how he became a trailer park carer
• Andrew Forrest from CASS argues that charities must practise what they preach when it comes to adhering to their organisational values
• Could regional pay and increased public borrowing spell disaster for public servants' motivation, asks Stephen Brookes
• Reading's Homeless Pathways scheme has saved £215,000 a year by shifting its focus from emergency to assisted support
• The Migrant and Refugee Communities Forum has set up two social enterprises. Nick Micinski shares the experience
On my radar ...
• Welfare reform. Scottish GPs are calling for the end of the work capability assessment, otherwise known as "fit for work" tests. Dr Andrew McNutt, a GP in Bathgate, told the annual Scottish GP conference:
There has been a dramatic increase in the numbers being assessed as fit to work and a massive number of appeals have been made against these decisions. These assessments can have a devastating effect on our patients' mental and physical health.
Campaigners are now lobbying English GPs to follow suit, using the Twitter hashtag #braveheart
Meanwhie, the Scottish parliament's welfare reform committee is inviting views on how Scotland should implement the UK act.
• Disabled comedian Laurence Clark, who features in a new BBC documentary being screened this weekend. We Won't Drop the Baby, part of the Beyond Disability season, follows Clark and his wife Adele in the countdown to the birth of their second child.
• A lovely tribute to Jim Mansell , the professor of learning disability who died earlier this month, from the National Development Team for inclusion blog. Rob Greig remembers that when Mansell was asked to follow up his groundbreaking 1993 report on supporting people with learning disabilities more than a decade later:
In a memorable exchange, we expected to receive academic sized timeframes and bills for doing it, only for Jim to say it would only take a day and cost almost nothing. The reason, he said, was simple. All that was needed was to type "I was right fifteen years ago, and I'm right now. Get on and do it". This betrayed another Jim tendency that his colleagues will recognise – when supported by evidence, he was clear and adamant about how things should be done.
He adds:
Whatever comes out as Government statements [on the Winterbourne View scandal] in the coming weeks and months needs to not only say the right words, but also commit to resourcing and supporting actions that will mean no person with a learning disability is ever again consigned to rights denying, poor outcome generating, soul destroying, institutional care. If it doesn't, we should collectively challenge it until the right things are done. Why? Because that is what Jim Mansell would have done.
Other news
• BBC: People 'delay child abuse calls'
• Children & Young People Now: London boroughs announce staff-led mutual for school support services
• Community Care: Fear over Richard Branson's bid to run mental health service
• Independent: MPs call for new rules to reduce sugar in soft drinks
• Inside Housing: Services cut for 46,000 vulnerable people
• LocalGov.co.uk: Council tax process 'regressive', IFS claims
• Public Finance:
• Telegraph: Only celebrities and politicians will win elected police roles, says former Met chief
• Third Sector: Sector leaders call for meeting with Chancellor
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