The Health News United Kingdom October 13 2017

• Jeremy Hunt has announced that the cap on NHS staff pay is to finally be scrapped – but has not said if the government will give the health service extra funding to cover the cost of whatever rise is finally agreed. He told MPs on Tuesday that a seven-year run of 1% rises or pay freezes “wasn’t sustainable” and would come to an end with next year’s award for England’s 1.4 million NHS staff.
• “Lion mark” eggs have been declared safe for pregnant women and young children, nearly 30 years after a salmonella scare. Vulnerable groups had been advised not to eat raw, soft boiled or runny eggs. The Food Standards Agency says “Lion Mark” eggs, which include almost all of the eggs produced in the UK, are now free of salmonella.
• The cost of obesity-related diseases will increase by 60 per cent in a decade in the UK, a new study forecasts, amid calls for a strict clampdown on TV advertising.The WHO today said “widespread” action was needed to tackle obesity, which has seen a ten-fold rise globally since the 1970s, with one in five UK children now obese.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 13th of  October 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health News

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/10/nhs-england-boss-calls-for-extra-budget-funds-to-cope-with-rising-demand

The health secretary has announced that the cap on NHS staff pay is to finally be scrapped – but has not said if the government will give the health service extra funding to cover the cost of whatever rise is finally agreed. Jeremy Hunt told members of parliament on Tuesday that a seven-year run of one percent rises or pay freezes “wasn’t sustainable” and would come to an end with next year’s award for England’s one point four million NHS staff. He said he had been given “leeway” to do so by the chancellor, Philip Hammond, but when questioned if the government would cover the cost he said: “That is something I can’t answer right now because the latitude that the chancellor has given me in terms of negotiating future pay rises is partly linked to productivity improvements that we will negotiate at the same time.” That immediately raised concerns about whether the service will receive any extra funding increase in next month’s budget to help it foot the bill for a pay increase that has long been demanded by unions.Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, made clear that the Treasury would have to boost the service’s budget as it could not afford to meet the pay rise given its tight finances.

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Fourteen health unions, including those representing nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants, recently said they wanted their members to receive a three point nine percent pay rise in two thousand eighteen and two thousand nineteen plus a further eight hundred pound-a-head payment to help make up for the fall in the real value of their salaries since two thousand ten.

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The NHS has three hundred twenty three billion pounds less to spend than France and Germany, both of which put a greater proportion of their GDP into healthcare.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-41568998

“Lion mark” eggs have been declared safe for pregnant women and young children, nearly thirty years after a salmonella scare. Vulnerable groups had been advised not to eat raw, soft boiled or runny eggs. The Food Standards Agency says “Lion Mark” eggs, which include almost all of the eggs produced in the UK, are now free of salmonella. The new advice comes after a vaccination programme, and improvements to animal welfare. In nineteen eighty eight, a scare over the presence of salmonella in eggs caused a dramatic collapse in sales of eggs and a series of warnings for vulnerable groups to avoid eating them if they were raw or runny.
The then junior Conservative health minister, Edwina Currie, declared: “Most of the egg production in this country, sadly, is now affected with salmonella.” Missis Currie’s statement wildly overstated the danger and eventually led to her resignation.

But there was a problem with salmonella in eggs and by the nineteen nineties producers started a vaccination programme. The “British Lion Mark”, printed on eggs in red ink, was introduced so that eggs could be traced back to the farm of origin and to show best-before dates. Almost thirty  years on from the initial scare, the Food Standards Agency’s Heather Hancock, says runny eggs can now be eaten by everyone.

Last year British hens laid ten thousand three hundred seventy two million eggs, while on average we consume more than thirty four point five million eggs every day. And eggs are very good for you, packed full of vitamin D, protein and valuable omega-three fatty acids. Over the summer, millions of eggs were pulled from supermarket shelves in more than a dozen European countries – including the UK – after it was discovered some had been contaminated with a potentially harmful insecticide at Dutch farms. British eggs were not affected.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/11/calls-war-junk-food-ads-obesity-costs-set-rise-60-per-cent/

A new study forecasts that the cost of obesity-related diseases will increase by sixty percent in a decade in the UK amid calls for a strict crackdown on TV advertising. The World Health

Organisation today said “widespread” action was needed to tackle obesity, which has seen a ten-fold rise globally since the nineteen seventies, with one in five UK children now obese. A coalition of Royal Colleges and health charities said junk food advertisements should be banned altogether during peak times – such as the X-Factor – as well as during children’s viewing. The study by the Obesity Health Alliance found that junk food brands in the UK spend twenty seven times more on advertising than the Government does on healthy eating promotions. In total one hundred forty three million pounds was spent by the eighteen companies spending the most advertising crisp, confectionery and sugary drinks, dwarfing the five million pounds the Government’s Change for Life healthy eating campaign spends. Cadbury’s Dairy Milk tops the spending chart, with more than twelve million pounds, followed by Coca-Cola and Galaxy. The calls came as figures from the World Obesity Federation show the UK is spending more than fourteen billion dollars annually treating illness caused by excess weight – such as heart disease, diabetes and liver disease. Forecasts suggest this could rise to twenty two point seven billion dollars by two thousand twenty five, with thirty four per cent of adults obese, compared with levels today of twenty seven per cent.Globally, the report shows the US faces the biggest treatment bill, already amounting to more than two hundred forty billion pounds. The cost to Germany is twenty three point six billion pounds and Britain finds itself in third place.
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A new report by the WHO today calls for restrictions on promotion of junk foods, and more action to tax sugary foods. It follows UK plans to introduce a sugar tax on fizzy drinks, which will be introduced next year.