UK public health bodies call for minimum pricing on alcohol and to ban smoking in cars

Minimum pricing on alcohol, a ban on smoking in cars with children and eliminating transfats from food are among measures proposed by two leading UK public health bodies to improve the nation's health.

The Faculty of Public Health, the standard setting body for specialists in public health, and the Royal Society for Public Health, which represents over 6,000 health-related specialists, have published a package of 12 recommendations which they claim will improve the UK's health and well-being for the new decade, if adopted by the next government.

The health manifesto also calls for no junk food advertising in pre-watershed television plus compulsory and standardised front-of-pack labeling for all pre-packaged food.

Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, said: "Preventing ill-health with firm policies such as the smoking ban in cars has got to be right up there at the top of the next government's agenda. Any party that claims to be the party of the NHS has to commit to promoting and protecting health as well as healthcare - all the more so with such lean times ahead."

Professor Richard Parish, chief executive of the Royal Society for Public Health, added: "We are facing unprecedented challenges to public health ranging from climate change to a catastrophic diet and accidents to alcohol abuse. The time to act is now, not wait until it is too late to do anything meaningful. Many of the actions needed require political will, rather than resources. This manifesto represents a start upon which the next Government can build a healthier and more prosperous future."

The health organisations point to reports and research in support of their recommendations. Research by The California Environmental Protection Agency, for example, found that being exposed to cigarette smoke particles in a closed car is equivalent to the exposure of fighting a California wildfire for over four to eight hours. A 2008 YouGov poll in England, meanwhile, showed 77% of respondents supported a smoking ban in cars with children.

Alcohol-related harm and obesity rates in Britain are nearing epidemic proportions, add the health advisors. In England, alcohol-related hospital admissions went up by 69% between 2002 and 2007 and the cost of drinking to the NHS England is estimated to be £2.7 billion, according to a 2009 NHS report. In Scotland, the death rates are double compared to the UK as a whole and the country has the highest death rate due to alcoholic liver disease in Western Europe, according to the Institute of Alcohol Studies.

NHS statistics also reveal almost one in four adults in England were classed as obese in 2007, as were 17% of boys aged two to 15 and 16% of girls, add the health advisors.