Since the 80s, when raves became as commonplace as a school disco, parents feared their darling offspring would succumb to peer pressure and the vices of a whistle-blowing, pill-popping generation.

BUPA has confirmed that it is to raise £1.44bn from the sale of its 25 UK hospitals to the European private equity firm Cinven and has said it will use the money initially to pay down debt and then to invest in ‘long-term growth’.

The number of patients suffering from serious allergic conditions has risen by more than a quarter in four years, but there is a serious shortage of specialists to treat them, The Times has learnt.

{mosimage}Experts call upon the Government today to take immediate steps to combat the “massive epidemic” of severe allergic conditions, which can be fatal in the worst cases.A report submitted to the Department of Health of data from GPs’ surgeries shows that by 2005 an estimated 12.2 million people in England had been diagnosed with an allergy-related illness such as asthma, eczema, allergic rhinitis, peanut allergy or anaphylaxis, the most severe form of allergic reaction.

All these allergies were more commonly recorded among patients from affluent areas compared with those from deprived areas, suggesting that the environment in which babies are brought up could have dire consequences for their future health. Reports from the Royal College of Physicians and the Department of Health have previously given warning that there are not enough specially trained doctors: there are only six specialist allergy centres in Britain.

Pam Ewan, a consultant allergist at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge and a member of the National Allergy Strategy Group, said that the NHS was still failing allergy sufferers at “a series of levels”.

“It is a massive epidemic, and the lack of provision is startling,” she said. “GPs are not well informed about allergy at all, but particularly about food allergy, and that is because they are not trained in it.

“So GPs have gained knowledge by self-learning or self-interest, then if a GP wishes to refer to a specialist he will have a problem because there is a very small number of these.”

Senior judges have issued a strong warning to divorced and separated mothers that they risk losing the right to have their children live with them if they defy court orders and stop the children’s fathers seeing them.

Complacent bishops and demoralised clergy have hampered the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church to overhaul its child abuse policies after a series of scandals, according to an official report published today.

Julie Jones joined SCIE as our new chief executive on 9 July. Julie was formerly Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Children’s Services at Westminster City Council. During her 25 years at Westminster she has also held the roles of principal research and planning officer, director of social services and director of adult social services.

At a time when increasing numbers of senior managers in the voluntary sector are looking to do MBAs, Cranfield School of Management and The Cranfield Trust are offering scholarships to outstanding “third sector” candidates.

{mosimage}Middle and senior managers in charities and other voluntary organisations have traditionally looked to programmes in voluntary or public administration when it comes to postgraduate study. In contrast, the Cranfield Trust MBA Scholarships are targeted at high fliers in the voluntary sector who want to expand their skills.

The next applications cycle opens 1 September 2007 and the deadline for submissions is 31 October 2007.

Eligible candidates for the scholarship must be working for a European voluntary organization involved in issues of poverty, disability or social exclusion and have the potential to become a leader within the sector as a result of the ‘Cranfield experience.’

{mosimage}Liz Neal, Director of Mencap for Wales, is nearing the end of her two-year (part-time) executive MBA programme after being awarded a full scholarship worth £26,500 in 2005. “I chose the MBA because I felt I had a lot of experience of the voluntary sector. Sector-specific programmes could teach me more of what I know, but the MBA could teach me more of what I don’t.”

People on low incomes have similar diets to the rest of the population, a government report has said. The Food Standards Agency found that contrary to popular belief, nutrition, access to food and cooking skills are not much different in poorer families.

{mosimage}However, the agency pointed out that the whole population was not eating as healthily as it should be. There had been concern that diets among those on the lowest incomes in the country were extremely poor and they faced more barriers to healthy eating. It is widely accepted that poor diets can lead to chronic disease, such as heart disease and cancer, and contribute to obesity.

But a survey of 3,500 people on low incomes found that the food they were eating, although not particularly healthy, was similar to the general population. Also 80% said they shopped mainly at a large supermarket and most had good cooking and food storage facilities at home. Around 91% of women and 64% of men in the study claimed to be able to “cook from basic ingredients”.

Areas of the diet that were slightly worse in the survey, which covered the poorest sixth of the population, were consumption of fruit and vegetables and intake of sugar, particularly sugary drinks.

Levels of obesity were found to be very high – 62% of men, 63% of women, 35% of boys and 34% of girls were overweight or obese – but the FSA said this also mirrors the high levels within the general UK population. The survey found higher levels of smoking and alcohol consumption, together with lower levels of activity, than the general population.

Rosemary Hignett, head of nutrition at the FSA said: “The encouraging news from this research is that the gap between the diets of people on low incomes and those of the rest of the population is not as big as some feared. It is also positive that most people in this group say they feel confident about their cooking skills, have reasonable kitchen facilities and access to large supermarkets.

“However, the bad news is that this group – like the general population – are not eating as healthily as they could be. Small changes to diet can make a big difference to health so we urge everyone to think about the food that they and their family are eating.”

Dr Alan Maryon Davis, president of the Faculty of Public Health said the results were surprising and experts had always thought the gap was bigger. Although he added that if the results were compared with those in the most affluent sixth of the population there would probably be a greater difference.

A quarter of young offenders at a troubled privately-run child jail have been moved out and a new director appointed after official concern over the rising use of restraint by staff to control violent teenagers.

The graduates from the University of Southern California, which is based in the heart of Los Angeles, will be practising in the Housing and Community Care Department.