The Health News United Kingdom January 19 2018

• According to a leading charity, many more school staff need to be trained to help pupils with their mental health problems. A survey by the Scottish Association for Mental Health suggested two-thirds of teachers felt ill-equipped. SAMH chief executive Billy Watson called on the Scottish government to create a programme this year to train all school staff in mental health. Ministers are carrying out an audit of school-based counselling.
• Experts have warned that the NHS in England is in a “dangerous, downward spiral” after more than 33,000 nurses quit the profession last year. The leading trade union for nurses in the UK, the Royal College of Nursing, has urged ministers to act. More than ten percent of the nursing workforce left the NHS in each of the past 3 years. BBC analysis of workforce figures from NHS Digital found that more than 33,000 walked away last year – with the number of leavers surpassing the number of those joining the workforce by 3,000.
• Coca-Cola will reduce the size of a 1.75l bottle to 1.5l, and push up the price by 20p to £1.99 from March, in response to the introduction of a sugar tax on soft drinks that comes into force this year. The price of a 500ml bottle is also going up, from £1.09 to £1.25, the drinks giant confirmed. The Government levy is aimed at tackling soaring obesity rates, with the estimated £520m raised from the tax to be spent on funding sport in primary schools.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 19th of January 2018. Read by Tabetha Moreto.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-42703560

According to a leading charity, many more school staff need to be trained to help pupils with their mental health problems. A survey by the Scottish Association for Mental Health suggested two-thirds of teachers felt ill-equipped. SAMH chief executive Billy Watson called on the Scottish government to create a programme this year to train all school staff in mental health. Ministers are carrying out an audit of school-based counselling. Mental Health Minister Maureen Watt said: “Every child and young person should have access to emotional and mental well-being support in school.”
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SAMH conducted an online survey between August and September last year, to which more than three thousand school staff responded, including teachers, classroom assistants, janitorial, admin and catering staff. It said sixty six percent of those who responded did not feel they had received sufficient training in mental health to allow them to carry out their role properly.Only twelve percent of teachers who responded felt they had adequate training in mental health.
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Mister Watson said teachers had shown an “appetite for engagement”. Mister Watson also said the volume and the pace of the responses from school staff to the survey was “quite remarkable”. The charity chief claimed three children in every classroom experience a mental health issue before the age of sixteen but often struggle to get the help they need.

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There is currently no national strategy for how schools should deal with mental health.
The Scottish government said it had started a national review of personal and social Education – including consideration of the role of guidance and counselling in schools. The charity would also like to see counselling services across all Scotland’s secondary schools by two thousand twenty.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/nhs-in-dangerous-downward-spiral-after-33k-nurses-left-profession-last-year-a3742276.html

Experts have warned that the NHS in England is in a “dangerous, downward spiral” after more than thirty three thousand nurses quit the profession last year.  The leading trade union for nurses in the UK, the Royal College of Nursing, has urged ministers to act. More than ten percent of the nursing workforce left the NHS in each of the past three years. BBC analysis of workforce figures from NHS Digital found that more than thirty three thousand walked away last year – with the number of leavers surpassing the number of those joining the workforce by three thousand.

The RCN said that patients were “bearing the brunt” of strain put on NHS nurses. Janet Davies, chief executive and general secretary of the RCN, said: “These are disappointing, but not surprising, figures. The Government must lift the NHS out of this dangerous and downward spiral.
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She added: “We already know there are forty thousand unfilled nurse jobs and things continue to head in the wrong direction. There cannot be safe care for patients while the Government continues to allow nursing on the cheap.”
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Meanwhile the Government is increasing the number of nurse training places by five thousand  this year – a rise of twenty five percent. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “Nurses are at the heart of our NHS and that’s why there are eleven thousand seven hundred more on our wards since May two thousand ten.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/01/16/coca-cola-reducing-size-bottles-putting-prices/

Coca-Cola will reduce the size of a one point seventy five liter bottle to one point five liters, and push up the price by twenty p to one pound and ninety nine p from March, in response to the introduction of a sugar tax on soft drinks that comes into force this year. The company has confirmed that the price of a five hundred milliliter bottle is also going up, from one pound and nine p to one pound and twenty p

From April, soft drinks manufacturers will be taxed at eighteen p per litre on drinks containing five grams of sugar or more per one hundred milliliters, or twenty four p per litre if the drink has more than eight grams of sugar per one hundred milliliters . The Government levy is aimed at tackling soaring obesity rates, with the estimated five hundred twenty million pounds raised from the tax to be spent on funding sport in primary schools. Coca-Cola said that it had no plans to change its recipe to reduce the sugar content.Classic Coca-Cola contains ten point six grams of sugar per one hundred milliliters, so under the sugar tax it will be subject to a levy of twenty four p per litre. This means thirty six p of a one point five liter bottle will go towards the tax.

Several soft drinks manufacturers have responded to the impending sugar tax by tweaking recipes to avoid having to pay the duties.