News

In brief

Ministers have delayed publishing figures which show a rise in firework injuries following privatisation of the firework safety campaign in 1993.

The number of people injured by fireworks last year rose to more than 1,000, the highest level for 20 years.

Plans by the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital to privatise ‘surplus’ NHS beds have been condemned by the NHS Support Federation. The hospital wants to close a 28 bed NHS ward and convert it to a 15 bed private ward.

The NHS Fed said the plan was ‘an example of how underfunding and the market are pushing hospitals into privatising services’.

The most comprehensive study of the costs of work-related accidents and illness suggests that the total cost to the economy could be as high as £16bn.

The study, published by the Health and Safety Executive, estimates the direct cost to employers of accidents and work-related ill health as equivalent to 5 to 10 per cent of the all British-based company profits.

The World Health Organisation has made reducing inequality its central priority in the fight to improve global health. Until now, WHO has concentrated on specific diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea.

‘We are here for peoples in greatest need, including groups marginalised in the US and the UK,’ said John Martin, of WHO’s new department for countries and peoples in greatest need.

Tobacco subsidies are wasting millions of pounds a day of European Union funds, says the EU Court of Auditors. Half of the tobacco grown in the EU is dumped in developing countries with the aid of large export subsidies, yet tobacco is the most heavily subsidised crop in the EU, costing taxpayers £2.5m per day.

Over 80 per cent of hospital patients are satisfied with hospital food, according to a recent investigation into hospital catering by the National Audit Office, although younger patients tend to be less satisfied than older patients.

The investigation also found wide variation in the amount hospitals spend on meals, from less than £2 to over £10 per patient per day. The average reported cost was £5.45 per patient per day.