A controversial database which holds the details of every child in England has now become available for childcare professionals to access.

ContactPoint was a response to Lord Laming's report following the death of Victoria Climbie, who was abused by her great aunt and the aunt's boyfriend.

But the system, costing £224m, was delayed twice amid data security fears.

The government says it will enable more co-ordinated services for children and ensure none slips through the net.

But in 2007, a report into the project by auditors Deloitte and Touche said it could never be totally secure.

Last summer ministers delayed the database, admitting there were some "issues" identified in testing.

It says 390,000 people will have access to the database, but will have gone through stringent security training.

And it is a certainty that not one of those 390,000 people will be able to be blackmailed or bribed in order to give up a child's details.

Ahem.

I would suggest that giving over a third of a million people 'stringent' security training will be rather harder to do than the government thinks it will be.

Much like getting children used to handing over their fingerprints to borrow library books it seems that we are educating tomorrows generation to be content that the government has all their details.

Some quick comments to two pieces of ambulance news.

A chief constable has said he fears an injured person will die in the back of a police car heading for hospital due to poor ambulance response times.

Mick Giannasi of Gwent Police, was commenting after it emerged 92 people had to be taken to hospital by his officers over six months.

In December 2008 alone, police cars were used as a last resort 41 times because ambulances were not available.

I'd like to see the LAS figures on the number of calls that come to us from the police, normally assaults, that have 'no units to send'. The police are just as busy and stretched as us, and often our jobs overlap - it's just a matter of numbers that we sometimes end up doing each other's work. To be honest, given the exceedingly minor injuries that a lot of 'assaults' cause, it would seem a waste to have an ambulance pick up someone with a few scratches, of course using a police car in such a case, while quicker, is still not an ideal use of resources.

But picture the uproar from the headline 'Assault victim told to make own way to hospital'. Even if such an assault is a scratch the bad PR isn't worth it - which is one reason why we take everyone to hospital.

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A Derbyshire man is angry his 98-year-old mother had to wait several hours for an ambulance, on two occasions, after injuring herself in falls.

Brian Beardsley said his mother Agnes had lengthy waits for an ambulance called by a doctor at her Ilkeston care home on 4 March and 27 April.

Mr Beardsley says the waits were not acceptable for a 98-year-old.

East Midlands Ambulance Service officials apologised for the delay but said they had to prioritise 999 calls.

Mrs Beardsley, who has a history of falling, suffered head injuries during three falls in one day at the Victoria Care Home on 27 April.

Paramedics were on hand in minutes for two but for the third she had a lengthy wait.

Sadly the number of ambulances available are not infinite, and so all calls have to be prioritised - in this case the patient had been seen by a doctor who said that a four hour wait was acceptable, and she had to wait twenty minutes longer than that. I'm trying my hardest to see how this is 'news'. Note that when a doctor hadn't been out to see her first that 'Paramedics were on hand in minutes'. The flip side of the story is of course 'My husband died of a heart attack while ambulance crews dealt with a minor injury already seen by a doctor'.

It's lovely to be hated so much.

A Sunday Mirror investigation has revealed how Lewis Day Medical Services billed for phantom trips supposed to have been made by a non-existent driver.

An average of 20 journeys were faked EVERY DAY, and the scam lasted for more than 18 months. The minimum charge for each journey was £8.60. But some cost cashstrapped hospitals £109 a time.

In one instance Villas's fake ID was used to charge £73.20 to take a patient with lung disease just two miles home. In fact, the trip had been cancelled hours before because the patient was too ill to travel.

Our investigators were passed a secret file listing all the fraudulent journeys relating to Villas. We handed the evidence to the NHS, who called in their own detectives. Lewis Day subsequently agreed to pay back £281,894 to Imperial College NHS Trust.

Despite the fraud being discovered, Lewis Day will carry on working for Imperial College NHS Trust because it is tied into a contract. And there is no prospect of anyone being prosecuted.

Wow.

More and more the NHS is relying on private ambulance companies, initially for this sort of patient transport and increasingly for A&E work. (More on which later). Sadly I suspect that this isn't going to be the exception and I foresee other companies being caught out in a similar fashion.

The very interesting thing is that

Despite the fraud being discovered, Lewis Day will carry on working for Imperial College NHS Trust because it is tied into a contract. And there is no prospect of anyone being prosecuted.

I can say, with some certainty that if I were to be found guilty of fraud I'd, quite rightly, be out on my ear. So why isn't this happening to this company?

My suspicion is that it would cost the trust more money to run the contract bidding system again, that or someone in Lewis Day has a friend or two in high places. I can't see any other reason how such a serious fraud would occur without the police being informed. I mean, the LAS has issued guidance on the sort of kit that we can keep in our cars - it's a small list with such items as 'Latex gloves - three pair only', they would be a bit upset if I were to steal over a quarter of a million pounds.

And then, when I get caught, go 'oops - here, have it back - no hard feelings eh?', and head out to pick up my next patient with hardly a word spoken.

Here is hoping that the other ambulance companies take a long hard look at the way they run things and the people that they employ in order to prevent similar situations happening in the future.