Daily roundup: Youth unemployment, citizen police, and children on adult hospital wards

Youth unemployment dropped by 72,000 in the three months to October this year, according to the latest official data. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show the number of unemployed 16- to 24-year-olds fell to 945,000 during the period. The unemployment rate for the age group was 20.3 per cent for the three months, down 1.3 percentage points from May to July.

Two-thirds of people would walk simply past if they saw “gangs of teens” drinking and verbally abusing passers by, a study commissioned by Policy Exchange has found. The think-tank is calling on the public to get more involved with crime prevention, pointing to figures showing that the number of citizen’s arrests in the Met Police area halved in two years from 3,755 in 2009/10 to 1,816 in 2011/12. The report calls for the creation of Citizen Police Academies to train the public and Crime Prevention Officers (CPOs) to replace neighbourhood police officers.

Nearly 4,000 children were admitted to adult hospital wards in Northern Ireland in the space of 12 months. The country’s health and social care watchdog, the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA), has called for an agreed age limit up to which children should only be admitted to paediatric wards. Glenn Houston, RQIA chief executive, said: “RQIA’s review team found that there was no standardisation in age limits for admittance of children to adult wards. In the absence of regional guidance we also observed variations in practice both across and within trusts.”

The number of children abducted and taken abroad by an estranged parent has risen by 88 per cent in less than ten years. The BBC reports that there have been more than 500 cases so far this year, compared to 270 reports in 2003/04. The Foreign Office (FCO) has launched a campaign to highlight the issue. FCO research suggests that a quarter of people do not realise that it is illegal for a parent to take a child overseas without the permission of others with parental responsibility. “We know that before or during school holidays is one of the most common times for a child to be abducted,” Daisy Organ, head of the FCO's child abduction section, said.

A full review of plans to end children's heart services in Leeds is to take place after intervention by local politicians. North Yorkshire County Council said Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has accepted the judgement of an independent panel that a full review of plans to take services away from Leeds General Infirmary is warranted. “This is a tremendous step forward in our fight to save this essential service for the people of the Yorkshire and Humber region,” Jim Clark, chairman of North Yorkshire County Council's health scrutiny committee, said. Leeds is among a number of children's cardiac surgery centres that have been earmarked for closure.

And finally, a row over milk has resulted in thousands of children missing out of their daily drink. The Scotsman reports that one of Scotland’s biggest dairies has stopped milk deliveries to thousands of nurseries after health chiefs halted payments to the firm over “discrepancies” in its invoices. The dairy, which supplies more than 10,000 UK nurseries, has said it will not be able to deliver until the matter is resolved. The Department of Health, which overseas the government-funded nursery milk scheme, has said no payment will be made to the milk supplier until “discrepancies” are cleared up in relation to the amount of milk being claimed for.