Society daily: 25.10.2010

Few doctors believe NHS white paper proposals for radical shake-up will improve patient care, according to a survey. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Today's top Society Guardian stories

NHS white paper backed by only one in four doctors

Gove admits pupil premium is not new money

Ministers plan £140 a week pension and end to means testing

Nurse switched off patient's life support machine by mistake

Children found working in freezing field taken into care

Axe on charities "risks wrecking big society"

Susanna Rustin: "super council" is part of a ruthless Tory ideology

Julian Glover on the Tower Hamlets Mayoral election "catastrophe"

Jackie Ashley: teachers and binmen are wealth creators too

All today's Society Guardian stories

Other news

• "Free school" teachers and heads will not need teaching qualifications, according to a report in the Financial Times

• The youth volunteering agency V is to lose its funding and be replaced by the government's new National Citizen Service, according to Third Sector.

On my radar ...

• Lord Nat Wei's latest post in which he invokes "Regency and Georgian" values in a "call to arms" for Big society.

• Macolm Payne's collection of cartoons about the cuts, from Steve Bell to Matt and Garland. (Thanks @kairudat)

• The Broken of Britain: a new blog set up and run by disabled people and carers to collect stories and provide a voice:

"To the disabled people of Great Britain. Our individual voices are too quiet to be heard, but collectively we can shout loud enough to drown out this tide of abuse against us. Disability Hate Crime, lack of full legal protection, people in care homes costing too much to be let out and not one political party willing to fight for us. We must emulate other successful civil rights movements and with polite determination take our place as equal members of society."

• Blogger Fighting Monsters' brilliant exposition of why older people will be squeezed by NHS and social care cuts

• This sign of the times from Manchester: pound shop rebrands as 85p store

• The Observer's Secret Civil Servant diarist, for this succinct description of the complexity of cuts reform:

"Public services are interconnected. Without a proper strategy, cutting one just passes the costs on to others. Local authority cuts mean less housing and services. Together with huge welfare cuts, this puts pressure on the police to sort out the homeless and the hungry and increases demand on the NHS. Local authority cuts mean reduced social care services which means more pressure on the NHS. All this increases demand on the saddest social safety net of all. The one place where you always get free food and a bed – a prison."

• Blogger Andrew Ballard's bleak view of the future for public sector IT following the spending review (thank you The Great E-Mancipator)

• This post by Tessy Britton on her Thriving Too blog: social spaces - whose city is it anyway?

• Blogger Osama Saeed's research into the hiring and firing records of the 35 chief executives who trumpeted the ability of the private sector to employ the thousands of public sector workers made jobless by the cuts (thanks @FlipChartFT)

• This Tweet by Andrew North, chief executive of Cheltenham borough council:

"After hearing N Clegg on A Marr Show I wonder how real new freedoms for councils are and how far their use can prevent damage from cuts."

In case you missed them ... Society Guardian weekend highlights

Councils prepare for exodus of poor families from London

Secret Civil Servant: thanks to the cuts we'd all be better off in prison

Polly Toynbee: the NHS is a volcano waiting to erupt

All Sunday's Society Guardian stories

All Saturday's Society Guardian stories

Guardian and Observer Christmas Charity Appeal 2010

Nominations are now closed for our Christmas appeal 2010, which will support charities working with vulnerable teenagers and young adults. Many thanks to everyone who applied.

Our Christmas charity 2010 partners New Philanthropy Capital are now sifting through the 300 applications we recieved. A shortlist of projects will be submitted to a selection panel comprising Guardian/Observer and NPC staff at the end of October. Ten projects will be chosen.

We will contact both successful and unsuccessful applicants once the panel has reached it decision in early November. The appeal will launch towards the end of November and run until mid-January.

Events

Transforming Social Care through IT. Finding your way in a changing service environment 8 December, London. Take a practical look at social care provision, address the changing face of services and explore the reasons why technology is fundamental to the future of care. Register now and save 30%.

Transforming Blue Light Services Innovating ICT for the emergency services, 24 November 2010, London. Discover how the innovative use of technology will improve performance and response in difficult financial times.

Guardian Social Enterprise 2010, 16 November, London. An interactive conference for anyone delivering public services or supporting social enterprises. Speakers include: minister for civil society Nick Hurd; Peter Holbrook, chief executive of the Social Enterprise Coalition; Allison Ogden-Newton, chief executive, Social Enterprise London; Lord Victor Adebowale, chief executive, Turning Point; Rod Schwartz, chief executive, Clearly So; Dai Powell, chief executive, HCT; Alastair Wilson, chief executive, School for Social Entrepreneurs.

Capital Ambition Delivering services for London in an age of austerity, 15 November 2010, London. Join leading practitioners across London to rethink, redesign and reassess the way services are delivered.

Information Security and Identity Management in the Public Sector, 3 November 2010, London. Keeping pace with new threats. Hear from Christopher Graham, Information Commissioner and Belinda Lewis, Ministry of Justice.