Sugar tax must apply to sweets as well as drinks, say campaigners

The sugar tax should be extended to cover sweets, not just soft drinks, according to public health campaigners. The charity Action on Sugar said it wanted ministers to get tough on childhood obesity by forcing confectionery manufacturers to reduce the sugar in their products.

Chocolates and sweet confectionery account for 9% of all the sugar eaten by children aged between four and 10 and for 11% by those aged between 11 and 18.

The levy, which is due to come into force in the UK affecting heavily sugared fizzy drinks from next year, should also be applied to sweet treats sold in coffee shops and restaurants because those often contained a lot of sugar and calories, the campaign group said.

Under the new rules, producers or importers of soft drinks will have to pay a sugar tax of 18p per litre on drinks containing five grams or more of sugar per 100 millilitres and 24p per litre more if their products contain eight grams or more per 100 millilitres. The Treasury expects the levy to raise £520m a year.

“Action on Sugar is urging the next government to implement a mandatory sugar levy on all confectionery products that contain high levels of sugar to ensure maximum impact to help tackle the obesity and type 2 diabetes crisis,” said Graham McGregor, Action on Sugar’s chairman, who is professor of cardiovascular medicine at Queen Mary University of London.

“The levy should be structured by the Treasury as per the soft drinks industry levy, whereby it is aimed at manufacturers to encourage them to reduce sugar in their overall product ranges. The next government needs to bring in tough measures to ensure compliance and put public health before the profits of the food industry.”

Dentists in Britain backed the move as a way of tackling tooth decay. “When the sugar levy is already showing that progress is possible, it makes no sense to draw an arbitrary line and ignore the likes of sweets or energy drinks that are so aggressively marketed at children,” said Mick Armstrong, chair of the British Dental Association. “Ministers keep giving the impression that it’s ‘mission accomplished’ on sugar controls. Dentists are confronting an epidemic of tooth decay and government must show it is prepared to go further on advertising, reformulation targets and through the tax system.”

A sugar tax on sweets had to be mandatory because “voluntary sugar reduction vis reformulation alone will not combat obesity”, said McGregor.

Conservative sources said they would not be extending the sugar tax. “Reducing childhood obesity is vital, and we’re pleased that Public Health England says that our plan to address it is the most ambitious in the world,” a source said.

The Food and Drink Federation, which represents manufacturers, recently warned that the 20% cut in sugar content of most types of foodstuffs being sought by Public Health England by 2020 was highly unlikely to happen because it would not be “technically possible, or acceptable to UK consumers”.

Sugar tax must apply to sweets as well as drinks, say campaigners

Old wives" tales: First apply the duct tape...

The broadcaster is claiming the display has the prospective to uncover a miracle cure and save the NHS a large pot of money. This is plainly a load of nonsense, but it makes for entertaining tv, and is a helpful reminder that behind each previous wives’ tale, there is a small pipette of truth.

For instance, the previous adage that you must chew on some ginger to cure travel sickness is grounded in scientific actuality. As lengthy ago as 1982, a research identified that ginger was superior to dimenhydrinate, a frequently used movement-sickness drug, for reducing nausea. Chewing on parsley genuinely does support poor breath since it is made up of chlorophyll, a tiny-recognized breath deodoriser. Mashed brown apples may possibly nicely be capable to end diarrhoea, thanks to the pectin identified in the fruit, which can soak up water from the intestines.

But potentially the strangest remedy is the use of duct tape to remedy verrucas. It sounds as preposterous as applying scorching glass cups to your skin to draw out damaging “humours” – something from the era of mad king George III that bizarrely has returned to favour in Hollywood. It is believed that Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston are fans of cupping. I await the return of leeches.

But back to the duct tape. One patient featured on Monday night’s programme said he had had a verruca for eight years and been unable to shift it till he caught duct tape more than the offending region. Hey presto! It disappeared.

Dr Ellie Cannon, a London GP who is 1 of the programme’s judges, mentioned none of the panel could agree as to why it worked, but all agreed that it appeared to do so. One particular concept is that the duct tape starves the verruca of oxygen. She says: “I know of a handful of physicians who have commenced recommending it to individuals.”

Several in the healthcare profession are supportive of consumers raiding their backyard or kitchen for residence cures – as lengthy as they vaguely know what they are carrying out. Dr Stephen Amiel, the editor of The Doctor’s Book of House Treatments, has said: “I feel we are all a minor also drug-hungry, and assume to get a pill for each unwell – anything medical doctors are partly accountable for. A whole lot of the outdated, sensible remedies can be just as successful, cheaper and often have no side-effects.”

Dr Cannon says her surgery is often clogged up by sufferers with minor coughs and aches that should be “home-cured”, rather than treated with a prescription.

One point is specified. In an age when the bizarrest healthcare situation generates thousands of words of in-depth discussion on the web, there will usually be somebody willing to experiment with a house remedy – even if it does involve the device box, rather than the medicine cabinet.

Old wives" tales: First apply the duct tape...

NHS might want to apply a lot more patient expenses, says report

The report concludes that social care is presently in crisis and that the NHS is heading the exact same way. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Far more patient fees could require to be introduced in the NHS, like fees for hospital and GP appointments and removing the blanket exemption from prescription fees for the in excess of-60s, in accordance to a report from the King’s Fund, which suggests the existing wellness and social care systems are no longer match for objective.

The interim report from the five-sturdy Commission on the Long term of Health and Social Care in England, chaired by Kate Barker, a former Financial institution of England economist, has been published as all 3 main events decide how to method the issue of social care in their election manifestos.

The report concludes that social care is already in crisis and that the NHS is heading the exact same way. It points to “challenging selections” that have to be looked at “squarely in the eye”, with a number of possible implies of escalating revenue.

Outpatients could be charged £10 for hospital appointments even though people who fail to flip up could also be charged as a penalty. Expenses for hospital stays or hospital therapy may also be regarded as. Extending charges for dentistry could also boost revenue, and a charge for going to the GP – £5 to £25 – could be launched, the report said.

The report says there also demands to be an acknowledgement “that all pensioners are no longer poor pensioners”, also suggesting that the winter fuel allowance and free Television licences for the in excess of-75s could also be reconsidered, with the income diverted into wellness and social care.

The independent Barker commission was set up by the King’s Fund to re-examine the postwar settlement, which established separate systems for health and social care.

Even though social care is commissioned by local government and is not ringfenced from cuts, well being services are run by the NHS and are protected. The report calls for a single ringfenced budget between the two separate services. It additional that the recent technique outcomes in a lottery for sufferers and calls for overall health and social care to grow to be much more closely aligned.

“The contrast among a health services cost-free at the stage of use and a social care service that is indicates tested, and publicly funded only for those with heavy requirements, outcomes in a lottery – the variety of ailment you have will decide the economic help you get to cope with its results.

“The outcome of this lottery is that there is no equity – equivalent demands do not acquire equal remedy.”

At a time when wellness and social care need to be converging to meet the wants of men and women with several circumstances, “the two programs are alternatively diverging, with publicly funded social care turning out to be a residual service offered to people with only the quite best requirements”.

The NHS appears also to be heading in the direction of its personal monetary crisis, it stated. “A crisis in social care is presently with us, and yet another seems to be to be on the horizon for the NHS, at least in terms of finance.”

A lack of integration is a main disadvantage, the report says. “The economic as nicely as the human price tag of this failing is illustrated by the 3,000 beds a day occupied by folks who had been match to depart but caught in hospital in January 2014 while funding or evaluation was resolved.”

Barker stated: “The existing techniques rub up against each other like bones in an open fracture. The lack of alignment among them leads to significant troubles of co-ordination, with the NHS and regional authorities battling over who need to spend for what, and sufferers, services consumers and their households left confused and bewildered. This is not sustainable – we want a new settlement fit for the 21st century.”

“This report is our stake in the ground. The prize we seek out – a single, seamless wellness and social care system that offers equal assistance for equal need to have – is a considerable one particular. This necessitates generating options about how to pay for a much better method – tough selections that we should appear squarely in the eye.”

The report sets out the option for how to fund an integrated service, but says it will set out its preferred alternatives in a final report in September.

Current complete paying on well being and social care amounts to about £150bn a 12 months, or roughly ten% of GDP, the report says. Some £122bn was public expenditure and just underneath £28bn personal paying, with NHS expenses included in the personal-spending complete.

An try to create a cross-get together concensus on funding of an integrated service just before the 2010 election fell apart when the Conservatives attacked Labour’s ideas for a “death tax”.

Andy Burnham, the shadow wellness secretary, has been pressing Ed Miliband to back an integrated nationwide health and social care support as the central feature of a big election manifesto offer. There is concern in shadow Treasury circles about the price and the possibility that Labour would be accused of proposing a £20bn tax.

Labour might need to have to make a selection by the National Policy Forum in Milton Keynes in July, partly due to the fact time would be necessary to sell the policies and repel a very likely bombardment from the Conservatives.

Burnham welcomed the report’s central phone for a new settlement for the NHS. He mentioned: “It echoes Labour’s belief the NHS now requirements to be reset for the 21st century as a entire-individual support.”

NHS might want to apply a lot more patient expenses, says report

Paul Burstow: The Human Rights Act need to apply to all pensioners in care homes

So, for example, a individual living in a care house has no safety of tenure, and a resident can be evicted quite simply. It is properly acknowledged that the shock of getting forced to move out of a care home can contribute to someone’s death, and so the Human Rights Act is rightly a backstop in this kind of instances, but only if the Council organized the care.

Worse even now, if you are cared for in your own home by a personal or third sector company, even if the Council arranged it, human rights safety does not apply.

Final yr I was delighted when a cross celebration vote in the Property of Lords defeated the Government to amend the Care Bill to end this anomaly. But that Bill is not but law, and the Justice division is digging its heels in and now would like MPs to overturn that vote.

On ideological grounds the Justice Division would have MPs vote so that the Human Rights Act does not apply to older people who correct up their very own care. It believes that the Act ought to not apply to personal care arrangements.

But this is just not great adequate. How can it be acceptable that if men and women rob a bank and go to prison, then their dignity and care are covered by the Act – but not an elderly person with dementia living in a care home?

So as an alternative of making an attempt to unravel the alterations the Property of Lords manufactured, the Government should embrace it. Respect for a person’s human rights must be at the heart of very good care, it ought to be engrained in the culture of each organisation that supplies care, regardless of whether they are private, charity or publically run. Clarifying the law in this way would be a spur to every care supplier to develop a human rights method into the way they deliver care, assisting to drive up specifications across the entire social care sector.

The Care Bill will be a landmark reform of care in England, extensively welcomed by charities representing older and disabled folks. It is anything the Coalition can be proud of. I am as a result respectfully calling on the Justice Secretary to get rid of his ideological blinkers, and believe about the message he is sending out. I can only hope he reconsiders – for the sake of households and folks needing care everywhere.

Paul Burstow: The Human Rights Act need to apply to all pensioners in care homes