The families of two Pret a Manger customers who died after experiencing severe allergic reaction have welcomed a report from a senior coroner suggesting hospitals should be obliged to report fatal and near-fatal anaphylaxis.

Maria Voisin, the senior coroner for Avon, has written a report suggesting that hospitals should be obliged to report fatal and near-fatal anaphylaxis, following the death of two Pret a Manger customers who experienced severe allergic reaction. The families of Celia Marsh, who died in 2017 and Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died in 2016, have welcomed the call.

The proposed system could involve mandatory reporting by hospitals to local health protection officials of anaphylaxis similar to the current system for notifiable diseases.

The prevention of future deaths report was sent to bodies including the UK health department and the FSA, after the death of Celia Marsh. Voisin also called for more “robust” labelling and testing systems, warning: “The wording used on food products, and the public’s understanding of these phrases in terms of implying the absence of a particular allergen, can be potentially misleading. Examples include ‘free-from’ and ‘vegan’. Foods labelled in this way must be free from that allergen, and there should be a robust system to confirm the absence of the relevant allergen in all ingredients and during production when making such a claim.”

Marsh’s family said: “We welcome the prevention of future deaths report as the next step in our fight to make the world a safe place for allergy sufferers like our beloved mum and wife. Above all, we hope that the FSA, UK Health Security Agency and the Department of Health and Social Care will now start working together to put in place a system for mandatory reporting of fatal and near-fatal anaphylactic reactions to allow the public to be alerted of unsafe allergen products and provide an accurate record of such incidents. This will ensure important lessons can be learned with the appropriate enforcement action being taken.”

Tanya Ednan-Laperouse said: “The coroner’s clear and concise recommendations should herald a transformation of the way anaphylaxis cases are dealt with in this country and mean that Celia’s death was not in vain. We are particularly pleased to see that the coroner has called for anaphylaxis to be considered a notifiable disease with a national register of fatal and near-fatal cases of severe food allergic reactions. She has also called for a thorough overhaul of potentially misleading and dangerous precautionary allergen labelling and the implementation of robust allergen testing by food producers. These well-overdue measures will save lives.”

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has recently published new guidance to help organisations effectively assess and gain confidence in the cyber security of their supply chains.

It follows a significant increase in cyber-attacks resulting from vulnerabilities within supply chains in recent years, including some high-profile incidents such as the SolarWinds attack.

The new guidance is designed to help medium and larger organisations effectively assess the cyber risks of working with suppliers and gain assurance that mitigations are in place.

Supply chain attacks can cause far-reaching and costly disruption, yet the latest government data shows just over one in ten businesses review the risks posed by their immediate suppliers (13%), and the proportion for the wider supply chain is just 7%.

Could you provide a case study?

The NCSC are also looking for organisations of all sizes to share their experience of a cyber incident as an anonymous case study. Incidents can include Phishing with data extortion or malware; Ransomware; Malicious Insider; Data breach; Denial of service or DDOS. If you are willing to share your experience click here

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) have now published their final progress report on the sugar reduction programme 2015-2020, a year later than planned.

The programme was launched in 2016 by Public Health England (PHE) but transferred to the Office for health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) in 2021 when PHE was disbanded. Its aim was to achieve a voluntary 20% sugar reduction across key categories in a bid to reduce childhood obesity.

Progress is reported for retailers and manufacturer branded products purchased for consumption in the home and uses sales weighted averages for products purchased across Great Britain (GB).

However, the data reveals that industry achieved just a 3.5% reduction based on data for the year ending 6th September 2020, compared with a baseline year of 2015. It also shows a 7.1% increase in the tonnes of sugar sold from the product categories included in the programme between the baseline and year four. This included a 26.9% increase in the tonnes of sugar sold in chocolate confectionery and 24.5% for sweet spreads and sauces. The suggestion is that this could have been caused in part by the increased amount of sweet treats consumed during lockdown.

The programme seems to have been even less successful in the out-of-home sector, achieving just a 0.2% reduction in the simple average total sugar per 100g in products sold between its baseline of 2017 and 2020. Note: for those products, a baseline year of 2017 was set as robust data for 2015 wasn’t available.

In fact, only three categories, yoghurts and fromage frais, breakfast cereals and puddings saw reductions in sugar over the period, with an overall 8.1% increase in total volume sales from 2015 to 2020.

Unsurprisingly, as a result, health campaigners are now calling on Government not to rely on voluntary action and instead impose levies on the products in question as was the case for soft drinks. However, industry bodies have been quick to highlight the significant progress they have made and questioned whether the 20% reduction was ever realistic, with the reformulation of many products remaining a challenge.

You can read the full report here