File on 4 Investigates

Over the last month Britain's biggest provider of care homes for the elderly, Southern Cross, has been beset by financial woes. But across the country an even deeper crisis is unfolding as local authorities implement massive budget cuts.

This week File on 4 investigates how cutbacks are leaving elderly people with insufficient care, and councils with a major financial headache.

The programme also hears from small care home providers who say they are being forced out of business because the fees local authorities now pay them are too low.

And with the report from a Government commission due in a few days, the programme asks whether the gap in funding for the care of elderly people can be closed..

Reporter: Fran Abrams

A review into the care of patients in vegetative or low awareness states has been launched by the Royal College of Physicians. There are thought to be as many as 5000 such people in the UK.

For two decades, the Private Finance Initiative has been a controversial way of building new hospitals, schools, roads and prisons. Well over £200bn of taxpayers' money has been committed to the companies managing these projects.

Is Iran exploiting the turmoil caused by the Arab Spring, and the uncertainly following the killing of Osama Bin Laden? After Iranian military rockets were found on the battlefields of Afghanistan, Allan Urry assesses new evidence alleging Iran's closer ties with al Qaeda and the Taliban. And, with more illicit shipments of weapons from Iran being seized in the Middle East, in breach of a UN arms embargo, the programme also reports on the discovery of a weapons smuggling ring set up in the heart of Europe to service Tehran. It also investigates the involvement of a former British Royal Marine in the ring.

The investigation following an air disaster is supposed to make air travel safer. But do the reports always get to the truth about why planes crash? Emma Jane Kirby examines claims that international air accident investigations are often slow, incompetent and influenced by political sensitivities. So how does this affect the victims' families as they fight manufacturers and airlines for compensation? And could the blame game be preventing lessons being learned that could prevent future accidents?

Do we understand enough about how memory works to properly assess evidence in sex abuse cases when allegations date back decades? Can juries make decisions based on their common sense in complex cases?

The number of so called "historic abuse cases" making their way through the coruts has increased in recent years following changes in the law that make it easier to bring them to trial and a greater willingness on behalf of victims to come forward.

These are among the most difficult cases the justice system handles given the highly sensitive nature of the allegations being made and the often lengthy gap between the events in question and the prosecution. Many cases now turn on one person's word against another and therefore rely heavily on the quality of memory evidence each side can bring.

But even the memory experts are divided on how the court process should assess memory evidence. Whist many victims never forget their abuse, some psychologists say people can genuinely block out or forget abuse and then remember it in detail later in life. But others warn of "false memory syndrome" and claim that in some cases allegations are wrongly based on ideas that have arised during therapy or from third party experiences which complainants adopt as their own.

In this week's File on 4, Jackie Long examines concerns from across the criminal justice system - from lawyers who claim the system is creating "a new genre of miscarriages of justice" because defendants cannot get a fair trial, from victims who say their long-held memories are being branded as false in court and from psychologists who question how well equipped our courts are to consider such evidence.

So how much do we know about how memory works? And is the courtroom the right place to get to the truth?

Producer Sally Chesworth.

Is the NHS doing enough to combat the crisis in organ donations for transplants? Allan Urry examines the challenge of ensuring more suitable donors are available at a time when those waiting for life saving operations are increasing. Surgeons are reporting worse outcomes for some patients, as poorer quality organs have to be used because of chronic shortages. This comes despite a big drive by the Department of Health to improve availability. But, are opportunities to recover more organs being missed because of the way doctors manage the care of patients who are close to death?

File On 4. Banks and fraud squads across the world are beginning the task of tracing a vast fortune stolen from the Egyptian people by members of the Mubarak regime. Some estimates have suggested the missing money could run into many billions of pounds.

Following the recent first conviction and hefty fine under new Corporate Manslaughter legislation, the UK's health and safety regime has been hailed a success. Falling death and accident rates appear to confirm an improving trend.

But the families of some of those seriously injured and killed in workplace accidents say too many employers are still gettings off too lightly even when they've been found responsible for serious breaches of health and safety legislation.

As the government proposes lighter regulation of workplaces and the Health and Safety Executive faces deep cuts, Morland Sanders asks whether protection for employees will be put at risk.

Success of the Government's proposed NHS reforms in England rests on family doctors. GPs will be responsible for commissioning treatment for their patients, and managing the £80 billion NHS budget. But how much do we know about the effectiveness and value for money offered by doctors in General Practice? Gerry Northam reports.