All over Preston pubs are closing and leaving people jobless before Christmas.
At the height of the credit crunch over 20 public houses have been forced into closure in Preston, due to higher taxes on beer and people having less money to spend.
Friday and Saturday nights used to be packed; now they are a former shadow of what night life used to be like.
Beer sales in pubs are now at their lowest since the 1930’s, this has resulted that on average Preston is losing about 12 pubs a year. The British Beer and Pubs Association (BBPA) revealed that the current pub closure rate is seven times faster than in 2006.
People no longer feel secure in their jobs, so when they get paid, instead of going on a night out drinking, they are staying home and saving.
Elizabeth Cropper, manager from The Robin Hood Inn, Bluestone Lane, Mawdesley, Ormskirk, tells us that their business is suffering as well,
“We are bringing in half the numbers that we used to bring in, it’s hit us hard. We still have our loyal customers but even they can’t come as often as they used to.”
There are a number of factors that are being blamed for this recent decline in business, Mrs Cropper said: “People just don’t have the money they used to have; it’s all to do with the credit crunch. I don’t think that the smoking ban has affected us because we are more of an eating pub, but I know it has affected business in other pubs.”
The government could help pubs dealing with financial difficulties by cutting the business rates, but so far that hasn’t happened and more and more pubs in Preston continue to close.

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The credit crunch has hit Preston, affecting not just the people, but the businesses as well. It has recently been reported that Woolworths and MFI have collapsed, endangering hundreds of peoples jobs all over England.To help people deal with the hit of the financial loss, Christians Against Poverty (CAPUK) have opened two new debt counselling centres to help the people of Preston with handling debt. They work along side the church and when a church believes the area they are in is financial difficulty they contact CAPUK and ask them to open a new centre.However something else that has hit Preston hard is the recent closure of over 20 pubs during the last year. This doesn’t just affect breweries and landlords but it affects full time and part time staff as well, throwing them into the ever growing number of unemployment.The pubs are closing because people are being more careful with their money due to the recent food prices rising.Everyone will be suffering this Christmas, even if you haven’t lost your job, you may find it difficult finding somewhere to drink or eat.
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sunbed ban

It has been talked about recently how sunbeds should be banned for under 18's, i also found an article on the mirror.co.uk about a woman, 44, who has died of skin cancer. She had been using sunbeds since she was 17 and even had her own in her house, however when she started using them the dangers were not known. There is no excuse now, we know the dangers, we know about cancer, we should be looking after ourselves a lot more. Sunbeds cause skin cancer, and i agree with the health campaigners - sunbeds should be banned for under 18's. Read more of the article on http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2008/10/19/sunbed-addict-who-loved-tanning-dies-of-skin-cancer-aged-44-115875-20820310/

NHS dentists

Sky News has just posted an article, which if true, would affect and anger many people. It is telling us that after an analysis of NHS paperwork, by the Government, it suggests that dentists are recalling patients for check ups that may not be needed and splitting up courses of treatment that could be given in one go. This would make them a lot more money, especially since the new dental contract introduced in 2006, means treatment costs are now divided into four bands. The article also informs us that healthy patients do not need check-ups more than once every two years.
Under the new contract, dentists earnings have rose from £87,000 to £96,000.
The British Dental Association said it did not have the necessary data to comment.

malaria

Malaria is a mosquite borne disease and people often experience fever, chills and flu-like illness. If it is left untreated people can die from it, it is most commom with young children in sub-saharan Africa. BBC News has an article on how there is now a new cherry-flavoured pill which is easier to swallow and not as bitter tasting as other anti malaria drugs. It also doesn't need to be crushed (which can weaken the medicine) It says that Health Experts believe "the pill could help to promote better outcomes from treatment and delay the development of drug resistent strains of the disease."
Malaria kills more than a million people a year.

This is disgusting!

As i was seraching the BBC website to bring you more interesting health blogs : ) I found this article on how more than one in four commuters have bacteria faeces on their hands, and apprantly the more Northern the worse it got! In Newcastle and Liverpool, men were more likely than women to show contamination (53% of men with 30% of women in Newcastle and 36% of men and 31% of women in Liverpool), however in London, Cardiff and Birmingham - women were worse.
"People who had used the bus had higher rates of hand contamination than those who had used the train."
It also showed that manual workers had cleaner hands than other professionals, e.g, students, and retired people.
Personally I think this is disgusting and i always make sure that I wash my hands when i get home, especially after travelling on a bus because they are filthy!
Professor Mike Catchpole, director of the Health Protection Agency's Centre for Infections said;
"It is well known that hand washing is one of the most important ways of controlling the spread of infection, especially those that cause diarrhoea and vomiting, colds and flu." To read the article click this link -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7667499.stm

Honey

As I was searching through the Lancashire Evening Post website I found an article, that was reported by the Daily Mail, which has found that Honey has been found to help aid burn recovery in mild to moderate burns. Apparantly when honey was applied to the burns they took less time to heal than some widely used dressings. These review was carried out by the Cochrane Collaboration, however the researchers say that these findings should "be treated with caution." I just thought this quite an interesting article.

Obesity

According to a headline from the Daily Telegraph weight gain is linked to a switch in the brain. I found this article very interesting because it was not quick to just presme that people who suffer from obesity are just gready. Apparantly if this "switch" is faulty then the body will not recognise that it is full, and the brain will send out more signals to eat. The article suggests "drugs could be used to suppress this switch and help people get back to a healthy weight."
It is based on a study with mice, however the problems with this is that mice and humans have very different metabolisms , so the results will need to be confirmed in humans. If this is found I think this will help alot of obese people, it will also prevent a lot of painful and sometimes unnecessary procedures that people go through to loose weight. Check this article out on http://www.lep.co.uk/nhshealth/Obesity-switch.4559048.jp

Help for depression

I have always preferred to use alternative medicine than orthodox treatments, so Im always keeping my eyes open for herbal treatments and i found this on the Lancashire Evening Posts website about how studies have been found that St John's wort can help with people who suffer from mild to moderate depression. It is apparantly superior to placebo and as effective as standard anti depressents, they are also found to have fewer side effects. However it has not yet been found to help severe major depression. I think that anyone suffering from depression should try this out, first check with your doctor, because it can have serious interactions with a large number of commonly used medications, but it does not need to be prescribed by a general practitioner. If you would like to read the article i used then check it out on http://www.lep.co.uk/nhshealth/St-John39s-wort-for-depression.4574562.jp

smear tests

I have recently found out that women do not get called up for a smear test to detect cervical cancer until the age of 25! Personally i think this is ridiculous, so i decided to find out more about this by going to my GP and talking to my nurse, she informed me that this is correct but it is due to the fact that women at the age of 25 and below have cells that are immature, so a lot of smear tests can come back abnormal even when they dont have cervical cancer. To understand why it has come back abnormal women are then sent to get a biopsie, which is a very invasive procedure and has been known to leave damage in the cervix and can possibly leave women infertile.
I do understand why the NHS has changed the age limit, however I do believe that women should still be able to request a smear test if they want one, even if they are not experiencing any symptons!

welcome to my blog

My blog is going to be about health in the North West of England. This is for my presentation for the digital Newsroom workshop.