Alcohol continues to be sold at "pocket money prices", report finds

Alcohol continues to be sold at “pocket money” prices across the UK, with white cider on offer for pennies, according to a report.

The study from the Alcohol Health Alliance (AHA) concluded that little has changed in recent years when it comes to people being able to buy cheap booze from supermarkets and off-licences.

Meanwhile another study has found that British teenage girls are more likely to get drunk than their male counterparts. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study found 31% of 15-year-old girls reported having been drunk at least twice compared with 26% of boys of the same age.

Researchers from the AHA analysed 480 products to find the cheapest drink on sale across the UK. The team found that high-strength white cider, which they say is mostly drunk by dependent and underage drinkers, is being sold for as little as 16p per unit of alcohol.

They said: “The conclusion is clear – alcohol continues to be sold at pocket money prices in supermarkets and off-licences across the UK.”

They found a wide range of cheap alcohol being sold by major supermarkets – including Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

Their report said: “Both Asda and Tesco were found to be selling perry at 19p per unit, while Morrisons were selling cider at 20p per unit and Sainsbury’s stocked perry at 22p per unit.

“In our research, we also found an abundance of summer-focused promotions. The promotions included deals on multi-packs and free giveaways with alcohol purchases, enticing people to buy.”

The report said that for the cost of a standard off-peak cinema ticket (£8.24), people could buy 7.5 litres of the cheapest white cider – the equivalent of 53 shots of vodka.

“The minimum hourly wage for those aged under 18 is £3.87,” the study went on. “After just an hour’s work, you would still have 38p change after buying a three-litre bottle of Frosty Jack’s containing 22.5 units of alcohol.

“For the cost of a monthly Netflix subscription at £7.49, you would have change from buying two three-litre bottles of Frosty Jack’s.

“Today, £10 will not buy you a large Domino’s pizza, but you would have a penny left over from a 700ml bottle of 40% Putinoff vodka at £9.99.”

The report concluded: “Cheap booze can be found on every street corner. Fundamentally, very little has changed since the last report was carried out five years ago.

“While the lowest price we report is 16p per unit, we found a broad range of products on sale for 25p or less, which is half the 50p minimum unit price recommended by health bodies and alcohol charities.

“At the cheapest price per unit for white cider (16p), the low-risk drinking limit of 14 units per week for both men and women could be purchased for just £2.24.”

Chairman of the AHA and former president of the Royal College of Physicians, Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, said: “In spite of a government commitment to tackle cheap, high-strength alcohol, these products are still available at pocket money prices. Harmful drinkers and children are still choosing the cheapest products – predominantly white cider and cheap vodka.

“We need to make excessively cheap alcohol less affordable through the tax system, including an increase in cider duty. It’s not right that high strength white cider is taxed at a third of the rate for strong beer.

“In addition, we need minimum unit pricing. This would target the cheap, high strength products drunk by harmful drinkers whilst barely affecting moderate drinkers, and it would leave pub prices untouched.”

Each year, there are almost 23,000 deaths and more than 1 million hospital admissions related to alcohol in England.

More than two-thirds of alcohol sold in the UK is purchased in supermarkets and off-licences.

Another report has found that British teenage girls are more likely to get drunk than their male counterparts. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study found 31% of 15-year-old girls reported having been drunk at least twice compared with 26% of boys of the same age.

Alcohol continues to be sold at "pocket money prices", report finds

Blind guests fear for future of three specialist hotels sold by charity

The futures of the UK’s three remaining specialist hotels for the blind are in doubt, sparking fears that visually impaired people could be left isolated.

Action for Blind People is selling the Cliffden in Teignmouth, Devon; the Lauriston in Weston-super-Mare; and Windermere Manor, in the Lake District, because it can no longer justify the running costs.

The charity is hopeful that the hotels will stay open under new management, but critics of the sale believe that closure is more likely and that blind and partially sighted people will suffer.

David Haynes, 69, from South Milford, Yorkshire, said: “Without this sort of facility, I don’t know what people will do. You can’t imagine what it’s like leaving your house without any sight at all. People go there because all the staff are trained with regard to working with visually impaired people. It’s safe and secure.”

As well as being a regular visitor, Haynes sits on the Action for Blind People customer council. He is angry the council was not consulted over the decision, which was made by senior management and approved by the charity’s trustees, most of whom are blind or partially sighted.

The three hotels have swimming pools, textured surfaces, talking alarm clocks, large button phones, braille menus and facilities for guide dogs. They also provide a pick-up service from nearby stations and run supervised trips.

Action for Blind People said 2,000 visually impaired people used the hotels last year – just under half the total number of guests – although many went more than once. The charity said an increase in sighted guests is one reason it cannot justify the extra expenditure of £950,000 needed to run and maintain the hotels over the next three years.

But Haynes said the hotels provided an invaluable opportunity for the visually impaired to talk to each other and interact with the sighted. “We all learn from each other,” he said.

“It’s an indictment of 21st-century Britain that there’s no provision for the visually impaired to go to a hotel. All hotels have to have access for people in wheelchairs but they don’t all have to have staff trained to work with the visually impaired, to do small things like saying your meat is at eight o’clock [on your plate], your potatoes are at four o’clock.”

Christine Newcombe, vice-chair of Guide Dogs Circle, is another patron angry about the decision. She describes the hotels as a lifeline, particularly for the most vulnerable, who are completely blind, like herself.

“People are going to be isolated,” she said. “There’s been no consultation. No one has actually asked blind people what they actually want. The hotels offer peace of mind, health and safety.

“I just go with a friend and and leave John [her husband] at home. We have both got guide dogs. We just have a nice time. They do trips during the stays, [and] that would be difficult in an ordinary hotel.”

An Action for Blind People spokeswoman said: “We’re doing everything we can to find suitable buyers for the three Vision hotels to make sure they stay open, but we do understand that a lot of people are upset by the news that Action for Blind People will no longer be running the hotels.

“This has been a very difficult decision to make as we know how much Vision hotels mean to customers, staff and volunteers. To have kept the hotels open, we would have had to divert funds from other services and after careful consideration, we decided that this was not the right thing to do.”

She said the hotels were still taking bookings.

Blind guests fear for future of three specialist hotels sold by charity

Hundreds of thousands of NHS data sold to insurance coverage firms

The report discloses that patient details was sold to 178 personal firms on 588 occasions in between 2005 and 2012, with product sales to pharmaceutical firms and at least 5 major insurance companies, who used it to adjust consumer premiums.

Shockingly, in two situations, auditors had been unable to track down in which the NHS data had been passed.

The overview was led by Sir Nick Partridge, a non-executive director of the Wellness and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), which is now in charge of NHS information.

The transactions were dealt with by the NHS Details Centre, its predecessor entire body.

Sir Nick stated: “The HSCIC have to discover lessons from the loosely recorded processes of its predecessor organisation. The public simply will not tolerate vagueness about healthcare information that could be intensely private to them. We exist to guard their data and we have to earn their trust by demonstrating scrupulous care with which we deal with their personal information.”

Even though information did not identify sufferers, in some instances it would have been attainable to “deduce” which patients the data referred to, although this is unlawful, the evaluation found.

It concluded that “there had been considerable administrative lapses in recording the release of data. In some circumstances the choice making process was unclear and data of choices incomplete when managing health-related data this is unacceptable.”

Phil Booth, from privacy campaigners MedConfidential, stated: “The government says it will quit the sale of patient records to insurers, but what about the hundreds of thousands that have already been sold? All business reuse contracts need to be shut down instantly and all our information that should never have been given away must be deleted.”

The review calls for a series of changes to tighten controls of information and improved transparency about the use of info.

The report says three insurance coverage businesses – Scor Worldwide Life Uk, RGA Uk Solutions and Milliman – which hold recent patient information have been ordered to delete their information.

At least two a lot more insurance coverage firms, Very first Help and Pacific Existence, previously had accessibility to aggregate data, the HSCIC mentioned.

None had entry to named patient data. Information was utilized to set premiums for types of consumers, not distinct people.

The disclosures in February about the dealing with of hospital information emerged amid growing worries about plans for a nationwide database which will carry together information from GP data.

The programme was due to be launched in Could, but has been put on hold until next year as even more controls had been drawn up, and will comply with a number of neighborhood pilot schemes.

The HSCIC board stated it had accepted Sir Nick’s suggestions in total.

Helen White, Head of Safety at the Association of British Insurers, mentioned the sector supported the findings.

She mentioned: “Insurers do not want or use data that enables them to recognize people.

“They are interested only in information that demonstrates population trends in health, such as trends in how frequent specific illnesses are, and trends in recovery from specific illnesses.”

Hundreds of thousands of NHS data sold to insurance coverage firms

Cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging as minister says smoking is "cruel waste of human potential"

Public Overall health Minister Jane Ellison has announced to the House of Commons that outlets will only sell cigarettes in plain packaging in England, calling smoking a “cruel waste of human likely”.

Her anouncement follows the outcomes of an independent report which she said exhibits plain packaging would be really likely to have a “constructive impact on public overall health.”

The government should consider “every single effective measure we can” to minimize the number of smokers in the nation, she additional.

Nevertheless her comments prompted cries of “shame” from Tory backbenchers, who described the move as a “nanny state” measure rather than a Conservative 1.

Cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging as minister says smoking is "cruel waste of human potential"

Cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging to cut smoking

Following a Government U-turn on the notion last yr, Sir Cyril Chantler, a major paediatrician, was asked to make a report on the evidence of whether or not the policy will support drive down smoking charges.

The Government is moving forward with strategies to ban branding on cigarette packs in England, Public Wellness Minister Jane Ellison informed MPs.

Health campaigners are sturdy supporters of plain packaging, believing that anything which could discourage smoking could conserve lives.

But tobacco producers declare that it is basically a stage in direction of banning “legitimate” smoking even though encouraging a black industry.

David Cameron appeared to distance himself from plain packaging in July final 12 months, saying additional proof was needed to show regardless of whether it would be powerful.

But, amid stress from Labour, ministers signalled in November that the policy could however be implemented just before the 2015 election based on the final result of the Chantler evaluation.

Cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging to cut smoking

Patient data must not have been sold, NHS admits

Individuals in charge of the new scheme have repeatedly insisted that information held in the new giant database would by no means be utilized for insurance purposes, stating that any this kind of actions would represent a criminal offence.

Last evening a spokeswoman for the Overall health and Social Care Data Centre (HSCIC), which is now in charge of NHS information, mentioned its predecessor physique was wrong to sell the info to the insurance market.

The £2,220 obtain in 2012 was manufactured by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries – a specialist entire body for professionals who function for insurance coverage and investment organizations. It was then handed to one more society for actuaries, which published advice on how to “refine” critical illness cover.

The spokeswoman for HSCIC explained: “The HSCIC believes higher scrutiny need to have been utilized by our predecessor body prior to an instance exactly where data was shared with an actuarial society.”

“We would like to restate that complete postcodes and dates of birth had been not supplied as portion of this data and that it was not used to analyse personal insurance premiums, but to analyse general variances in essential sickness,” she extra.

The organisation said it would publish details of the bodies to whom it supplies this kind of information later this 12 months.

Patient data must not have been sold, NHS admits

Hospital records of all NHS sufferers sold to insurers

It boasts that “uniquely” they have been capable to combine these particulars with information from credit ratings companies, this kind of as Experian, which record the lifestyle routines of milllions of customers.

The calculations were used to advise firms how to refine their premiums, resulting in enhanced premiums for most consumers below the age of 50, in accordance to the report dated last March.

The 274-web page report describes the NHS Hospital Episode Statistics as a “valuable data supply in establishing pricing assumptions for ‘critical illness’ cover.”

It says that by combining hospital information with socio-financial profiles, specialists have been in a position to much better determine the likelihood of circumstances, with “amazingly” clear forecasts achievable for specific ailments, in distinct lung cancer.

Phil Booth, from privacy campaign group medConfidential, said: “The language in the document is extraordinary this is not about patients, this is about exploiting a industry. Of program any commercial organisation will target on producing a revenue – the question is why is the NHS prepared to hand this data above?”

He extra: “We have been categorically told that it would be illegal for GP data to be handed in excess of to insurers, nevertheless already all this hospital data has been extracted. It blows out of the water the notion that patients’ privacy is currently being protected.”

Final week Tim Kelsey, director for sufferers and data at NHS England, stated it will be “a criminal offence” for any info entered into the new giant database, which will combine GP and hospital records, to be sold for insurance purposes. Even so, a database which only contains hospital information stays a separate entity, with its personal principles allowing better accessibility to third events.

There has been a increasing backlash towards the scheme with loved ones medical doctors and privacy campaigners raising fears that information could be misused.

Those behind the £50 million data-sharing plan say it will increase healthcare and aid health care analysis.

Last week NHS officials announced a 6-month delay to the plans, to tackle issues and improve publicity. Speaking soon after the delay was announced, Mr Kelsey said the database necessary to go ahead simply because it was “vital” to strengthening Britain’s cancer survival costs.

Tomorrow, the Commons wellness choose committee is due to question NHS officials top the scheme and to hear worries from privacy campaigners.

In the report based mostly on hospital information, actuaries employed the details as the basis for detailed calculations about the incidence of typical wellness situations.

It describes a falling industry in ‘critical illness’ insurance coverage cover, with product sales dropping by nearly half in a decade, and suggests estimates of prevalence for major situations including Alzheimer’s disease are probably to be drastically underestimated, since they are based on the hospital figures, when most care is supplied outside hospitals.

Hospital records of all NHS sufferers sold to insurers