Reports of Ukrainian refugees returning to Ukraine for dental treatment as they’re unable to find treatment in the UK
People turning to DIY dentistry, pulling out their own teeth or creating home-made fillings and dentures
Tooth decay is the leading cause of hospital admissions for 6-10 year olds
In 2021-22, 83,000 people attended A&E for dental problems
Around 12 million adults in England haven’t seen an NHS dentist in the last two years
“They [people in England] are becoming so desperate that they are taking matters into their own hands. You’re then seeing the spillover into general medical practice, because people can’t get access to dental practice. And so doctors are becoming overwhelmed, A&E is becoming overwhelmed with dental problems. I think broadly the word ‘crisis’ is overused but we have been in a crisis situation for many years.” – Shawn Charlwood, chairman of the general dental practice committee at the British Dental Association
A 2022 BBC investigation found that 9/10 NHS dental practices across the UK aren’t accepting new patients for treatments. This is creating a huge oral health disparity between those who can afford to seek private dental treatment as an alternative, and those who can’t. Private dental care can be very expensive, and for many people in England, this simply is not a viable alternative.
NHS dentists will be given a ‘new patient’ payment of £15-£50 to treat patients who haven’t seen an NHS dentist in 2 or more years
Around 240 dentists (about 1% of the workforce) will be offered one-off payments of up to £20,000 for working in under-served areas for 3 years
‘Dental vans’ to be used to help reach the most isolated communities
NHS work made more attractive to dentists, with the minimum value of activity being raised from £23 to £28
Water fluoridation programme to be consulted on to attempt to reduce the number of tooth extractions from decay in the most deprived areas, starting in the North East
‘Smile for Life’ programme will offer advice to parents for baby gums and milk teeth and aims for children to see tooth brushing as a normal part of their daily routine
“Backed by £200 million, this new recovery plan will deliver millions more NHS dental appointments and provide easier and faster access to care for people right across the country” – Rishi Sunak
Criticism
The plan has been criticised by Labour’s shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, for being a “temporary measure.” Streeting has also drawn attention to the £400 million underspend in the NHS dentistry budget last year. Given that the new proposal is only backed by £200 million of funding, there are concerns that it may not be enough to drive the reform we so desperately need.
There was also strong criticism from the British Dental Association…
“Our recent surveys show over 8 in 10 dentists have treated patients who’ve undertaken some form of ‘DIY’ dental work since lockdown. It’s a national disgrace.
Ministers need to take some responsibility. A wealthy 21st Century nation is slipping back to the Victorian era on their watch.
The Government keeps saying it wants everyone to be able to access NHS dentistry. But there’s no sign of a credible plan to make that a reality, and no willingness to break from the failed contract” – British Dental Association
“This ‘Recovery Plan’ is not worthy of the title. It won’t halt the exodus from the workforce or offer hope to millions struggling to access care” –Shawn Charlwood
by Red Star Wealth
Australia is introducing a ban on disposable vapes, something which many are calling upon the UK Government to implement too.
Australia’s Decision
In a recent speech, Health Minister for Australia, Matt Butler, announced:
“vaping is now a very serious public health menace for Australia, particularly impacting our youngest members of the community. We’ve seen stories over the course of High School exam season of High School students having to wear nicotine patches in order to get through a two or three hour exam, such is their level of nicotine addiction”
“from the 1st of January it will be illegal to import any disposable vape. From the 1st of March it will be illegal to import and supply any vape that does not comply with TGA standards- and that is that it be non-disposable, that it be plainly packaged, that it not be flavoured, and have a range of other conditions about nicotine content and the absence of certain chemicals we know to be particularly harmful”
Australia is not the only nation with concerns about disposable vapes, with the EU proposing a ban in 2026 and France rolling out a ban this month.
Marketed at Children
As noted by Butler, one of the main concerns surrounding disposable vapes is their impact on children. It has been noted by many, including the Local Government Association which represents English and Welsh Councils, that more and more children who have never previously smoked are starting to vape. This means that vapes are increasingly becoming an introduction to nicotine addiction, rather than just a means to help people stop smoking.
According to the Local Government Association, councils are especially concerned by the marketing of vapes, which often contain fruity flavours and colourful packaging, both of which could particularly appeal to children. They added:
“Strict new measures to regulate the display and marketing of regular vaping products in the same way as tobacco are needed”
Environmental Concerns
Not only are these vapes harmful to humans, they also have huge negative effects for our environment. Research commissioned by Material Focus and conducted by Opinium found:
50% of single-use vapes are thrown away in the UK
1.3 million disposable vapes are thrown away every week in the UK. Per year, this is enough vapes to cover 22 football pitches
Each of these disposable vapes contains an average of 0.15g of lithium. When we consider that 1.3 million are thrown away every week, this adds up to 10 tonnes of lithium waste every year, which is the equivalent to being able to power 1,200 electric vehicles
Almost 1/5 of UK adults have bought either a single-use, rechargeable, or rechargeable with single-use chamber vape
Disposable vapes are hugely unsustainable, as they tend to be thrown away rather than properly recycled. These single-use vapes are designed as one singular unit so that batteries cannot be separated from the plastic, meaning that they cannot be recycled without special treatment.
This has caused concern for the RSPCA, who have noted that the materials and substances that make up disposable vapes, including lithium, plastic and nicotine, can all be hazardous to animals.
Overall, it seems that government action needs to be taken surrounding disposable vapes, including stricter marketing and manufacturing regulations, as well as finding a way to make them more widely recyclable.
by Red Star Wealth
When it comes to government policy and funding, the North of England often seems to miss out. The scrapping of the Northern leg of HS2 is one of the most recent examples of this, so is ‘levelling up’ a lie?
North Cut out from HS2
Last month, Rishi Sunak announced that the Northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham to Manchester was to be scrapped due to spiralling costs.
This means that the high-speed rail line intended to transform transport over Britain now will only exist between London and the West Midlands. Once again, ‘levelling up’ has been abandoned in favour of serving the needs of London.
Sunak’s Alternative: Network North
Sunak has promised that all the funds intended to be used for the Midlands and Northern areas of HS2 will be reinvested into transport plans for those same areas.
Some of the funding from these new plans include:
£12bn to better connect Manchester and Liverpool
Nearly £4bn allocated to improve local transport across the North’s six city regions
£2.5bn to fund local transport for towns and smaller cities
Upgrades to the Energy Coast Line between Carlisle, Workington and Barrow, enabling trains every 30 minutes between them
£100m shared across North and Midlands to support the development of London-style contactless and smart ticketing
£3bn for improving connections between major cities
£2bn towards new Bradford rail station and line connection
Almost £3.3bn set aside for building potholes
£2 bus far extended to December 2024 rather than rising to £2.50
£700m bus funding package for the North
£1.5bn for Greater Manchester
Nearly £1bn for Liverpool City Region
“Every penny of the £19.8 billion committed to the Northern leg of HS2 will be reinvested in the North; every penny of the £9.6 billion committed to the Midlands leg will be reinvested in the Midlands; and the full £6.5 billion saved through our rescoped approach at Euston will be spread across every other region in the country.
Instead of one line, serving a handful of stations and tens of thousands of people each day, Network North will serve hundreds of places and tens of millions of people each day, right across the Midlands and North. That is real levelling up.”
This all sounds pretty good, doesn’t it, but how can we be sure the government will deliver and that this isn’t just another failed promise?
As argued by The Yorkshire Post,
“Taken together, it means the Government has cancelled the certainty of a high-speed rail line serving the North and Midlands that was more than a decade in the planning in favour of a series of hypothetical schemes that run the risk of either requiring much more funding or simply not coming to fruition at all.
It is little wonder there is growing cynicism about whether much of ‘Network North’ will happen as billed”
Andy Burnham’s Response to Network North
Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, responded to the replacing of the Northern leg of HS2 with Network North by pointing out how no Northern leaders or mayors had been consulted in this new plan. Whilst the HS2 transport plans involved Northern leaders and helped represent Northern voices, this new plan does not. How can a plan be created to help the North of England without the input of actual Northerners?
“So, what has been announced today is not a solution to the East-West bottleneck that we face on the railways in the North. It does not deliver that new line. It involves patching up existing lines and leaving us with a problem that has still not been fixed. So, it doesn’t work East-West.
“It just does not make any logical sense to take HS2 trains up from London to Birmingham and then off HS2 onto the West Coast Mainline which is already a heavily congested line
“And people here know […] it’s not just East-West where people can lose hours of their working week when making journeys. It can be North-South as well, because neither railway is as reliable as it needs to be for people here in the north of England.”
Manchester City Council Leader, Cllr Bev Craig has said
“We need to approach this with diligence and a watchful eye to make sure the North isn’t being hoodwinked into the promise of more cash, into the promise of more investment, and into the promise of legislation to deliver this without it being realistic or without it ever being on the table”
Will the government actually deliver the new plan of Network North or will it face the same fate as the northern leg of HS2? Will the north finally have our transport needs considered? I guess only time will tell…
by Red Star Wealth
Due to the success of open banking, it’s likely that we will see the development of open finance in the near future.
Open Banking: A Success Story
Open banking involves granting a third party access to your bank account. With your consent, this third party can access your payment account data and ask your banking provider to make transactions on your behalf.
The October 2021 Open Banking Impact Report found that 55% of Open Banking consumers agreed these services had helped them reduce their fees and costs and that 83% were willing to expand their use of these kinds of services.
On the whole, open banking seems to have been largely successful, and this has now opened the door to expansion into open finance.
Open Banking to Open Finance
Both open banking and open finance operate on the idea that individuals should be in control over who can access and use their financial data.
Open finance is simply an extension of open banking; it would enable wider sharing of this consumer data to more financial products and services, rather than it being confined to banking. So, rather than this data sharing solely involving things like payments, under open finance, it would also be applied to things like investments, insurances and mortgages.
The FCA’s Definition of Open Finance
Encouraged by the success of open banking, the FCA, government, and financial services industry have been considering the potential benefits of open finance… but what exactly is it?
[Open finance] is based on the principle that financial services customers own and control both the data they supply and which is created on their behalf. Re-use of this data by other providers would take place in a safe and ethical environment with informed consumer consent. This would mean that a financial services customer who consents to a third party accessing their financial data, could be offered tailored products and services as a result. Access would be provided by that customer’s current financial services provider under a clear framework of consent
How Might this Work in Practice?
Open finance would work on the foundation already established by online banking. It would work in a similar way, through data sharing to third parties, but it would simply cover a wider breadth of circumstances by collaborating across various financial services. According to UK Finance, this could potentially, “reduce fraud, improve financial wellbeing, widen access to credit, deliver greater choice in payments and help enable reusable digital identities.”
So, let’s have a look at a few examples of how this may look in practice for its consumers…
With open banking, consumers can see all of their account balances on one singular dashboard. With open finance, more financial products could be incorporated, so that the consumer could see their ISA, pension, mortgage, investments, and so on, all in one place.
Open finance also allows for even more personalisation. One example of this is lenders being able to offer mortgages based on the customers’ exact needs. Their service to the consumer would be personally tailored to them as an individual through data analysis of their accounts and finances.
Whilst open banking allows its users to authorise third parties making payments on their behalf, open finance could go even further, allowing consumers to link automatic transfers between different financial products, such as establishing recurring payments to pay off their mortgage.
by Red Star Wealth
The government’s decision to make valid forms of photo ID a requirement for voting has faced backlash.
The Government’s Decision
From 4th May onwards, voters in England will have to show a form of valid photo ID at polling stations in:
Local elections
Police and Crime Commissioner Elections
UK parliamentary by-elections
Recall elections
This rule will also then apply for voting in UK General Elections from October this year.
If you do not have a valid form of photo ID, you can apply for a Voter Authority Certificate free of charge here.
The reasoning for this decision is to help avoid electoral fraud and ensure that democratic process is followed with voting. However, the Electoral Commission found no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud in the last 5 years. In fact, there have only been 1,386 cases of alleged electoral fraud reported to police between 2018 and 2022, with only 9 convictions and 6 cautions issued by the police.
What this Decision Means…
According to the Electoral Commission’s Public Opinion Tracker of February 2022, 3% of Great Brits don’t have any form of photo ID. They also noted that those who didn’t own a valid form of voter ID were more likely to be from disadvantaged groups, including:
17% of people renting from their local authority
10% of people renting from a housing association
14% of those who were unemployed
8% of those who are a DE social grade *
7% of those with lower levels of education
*A DE social grade is those in semi-skilled and unskilled manual occupations, those who are unemployed, and those in the lowest grade occupations.
As you can see here, the government’s decision runs the risk of effectively disenfranchising those from disadvantaged groups, inviting criticism from some individuals and groups…
Criticisms of Voter ID
David Davis, a former Conservative cabinet minister has called for the government to at least delay the introduction of their new voter ID rules to avoid many people being potentially restricted from voting. This is a particularly prominent point given that the May local elections are just around the corner.
“I would at the very least delay it and say, “look we will do this in due course when we’ve got enough of the people in that vulnerable group covered””
“If they do that, at least it avoids the worst outcome which is thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people are prevented from voting and exercising their democratic right”
Further to this, Electoral Reform have deemed it “an expensive distraction”:
“It’s not just those without ID that will have to pay up. The government’s own figures suggest the scheme will cost up to £180,000,000 extra a decade. We’ll all pay – and for what? Making it slower to vote – as poll workers try to match passports with ten-year-old photos to their owners and driving licenses that are still in voters’ maiden names. Should already over-stretched council workers be able to turn people away from polling stations due to bureaucratic errors?”
Polly Toynbee, a Guardian columnist, has also drawn attention to the unfairness of the government’s list of forms of acceptable voter ID, writing:
“Are you surprised that the list includes all kinds of acceptable ID held by older voters, but that the ID the young might have has been struck out? The whole purpose is to make it harder for young people, poor people and those who often move home to vote”
This is an interesting point given that voters aged 70 and over are 3 times more likely to vote Conservative than those in the 18-24 age band. It is significant that the government’s decision to implement voter ID mainly affects those who are lower income and younger aged, as these groups are less likely to vote for the current government to stay in power.
The deadline for applying for free voter ID in time to be able to vote in May’s local elections is 5pm on 25thApril, so if you don’t have a valid photo ID, apply for this soon!
by Red Star Wealth
Around 21% of England’s adult population regularly drinks at levels which increases their risk of ill health, but did you know that this can affect your ability to take out insurance?
Why Do Underwriters Ask About Alcohol?
When taking out insurance, applicants will go through a risk assessment process to help determine their eligibility to take out a policy, and the cost of their premium if they are accepted. This process is referred to as underwriting.
Many conditions can be worsened by a high alcohol intake, meaning that underwriters need to know how much alcohol an applicant drinks; they need to account for its possible effects on their life expectancy, level of health, or level of disability.
Insurance is always based on risk as the more risky you are seen to be, the more likely the insurer is to have to pay out. If anything indicates an increase in risk to your health, it will be factored into your ability to take out insurance. This includes:
Whether you’re a smoker
Your alcohol consumption
Your weight
Any mental health conditions
Certain medical conditions
Research conducted by the UK government shows that alcohol misuse is actually the biggest killer of working age adults in England, meaning it’s overtaken 10 of the most dangerous forms of cancer. Given this, it is no surprise that underwriters consider alcohol misuse a significant risk factor in insurance applications.
Alcohol Screening Tests
When assessing applicants’ alcohol consumption, Zurich asks:
How often you have an alcoholic drink
How many drinks you consumer on a typical day when you’re drinking
How frequently you have more than 8 units (if you’re a male) or 6 units (if you’re a female)
Whether you’ve been informed that you have liver damage
Whether drink driving has caused you to be banned from driving
Whether you have attended an alcohol support group
Most insurance companies will follow a similar pattern of questions, to determine the risk level of an applicant’s alcohol intake.
The exact level of alcohol consumption that causes your application to be declined differs from insurer to insurer.
“our ratings typically start when the total number of units is more than 30 per week […] Once someone has a total unit equivalent of more than 50 per week (the equivalent of three or four drinks per day) chances are they are doing quite a lot of damage to their health and we would decline to offer terms”
“If you drink 30-40 standard drinks per week, your application will need to go through extra underwriting and you’ll probably need to provide medical information from your GP, but you might still be able to take out cover. If you currently drink 40+ standard drinks per week, it’s likely your application will be declined”
These quotes offer insight to the general kind of level of alcohol intake which starts to present issues when taking out insurance.
“If there is a history of alcohol dependence we may offer terms, but only after a period of complete abstinence.”
This is typical among most insurance companies.
It’s much easier to take out life insurance if you are no longer misusing alcohol but a period of sobriety is usually required by insurers before they are willing to offer you a policy. Reassured puts this range at 1-5 years, depending on who the insurer is.
Overall, misusing alcohol can have harmful effects on your health, relationships, finances, work, and also on your ability to take out insurance.
