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BBC News
15-04-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Increasing Bradford shisha use 'concerning'
The increasing popularity of smoking shisha has become a health concern in Bradford, councillors have been are 26 shisha bars in the district and the practice had become more popular among young people, Bradford Council's health and social care scrutiny committee public health officials said they feared its use would lead to "increased tobacco addiction and related health issues".They said many people did not realise smoking shisha could be as harmful as cigarettes and called for more research into the impact on communities in the city. Shisha is an Egyptian word for water pipe or hookah. Fruit flavoured tobacco is burnt on top of lit charcoal and the smoke is then sucked through the were told that because it differs from regular smoking, many users do not see it as being as harmful when it can, in fact, cause many similar health problems to directly smoking tobacco."The smoke from shisha contains harmful toxins, including carbon monoxide, heavy metals, and carcinogens, which are detrimental to health," a report by health officials said."Shisha products often lack proper health warnings and content information, leading to a false sense of security among users."The social nature of shisha smoking also means that individuals may consume large amounts of smoke over extended periods, increasing exposure to harmful substances." 'Game changer' Councillors were told that shisha bars did not require a licence or specific planning permission - but that this could change under forthcoming to pubs and bars, councils would then have the power to revoke the licence of any shisha lounge that broke its licence conditions, according to the Local Democracy Reporting were then told the upcoming changes to legislation would help to regulate shisha bars and could be a "game changer", but there was a risk its use could move to "illegal spaces".Mikhail Foster, a public health officer at the council, said: "We need to look at how we better convey the harms."A challenge we see is people don't recognise shisha use as smoking – they don't see it as a concern." Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
BBC News
27-03-2025
- BBC News
Cardiff: Vulnerable children's details at risk in data breach
Details of vulnerable children in Cardiff have been compromised due to a data breach, council documents have cybersecurity failure poses "a potential safeguarding risk to children" and relates to young people looked after by Cardiff council, according to the Local Democracy Reporting of Cardiff council's governance and audit committee were told about the data breach by a council official at a meeting on council and Data Cymru have been asked for comment. A council document stated "a failure in cyber security results in a data breach and therefore a potential safeguarding risk to children" and said the situation had been escalated in January of this council's director of children's services, Deborah Driffield, mentioned the data breach while presenting an update on risk management to committee said: "[There are] some issues around cyber security."We have had a data breach that we are currently managing and drawing up... new arrangements in relation to this world of people stealing data and sharing it on the dark web and trying to understand how we can mitigate against that."That is a fairly new area for us, but we have shared the risks there and certainly are working with the Welsh government and Data Cymru and all of the other… local authorities on that."The council document also stated work had taken place with the national cyber security team and risk assessments were being undertaken, with an action plan is under failure affected Data Cymru, which is a Welsh local government company with a board of directors elected by the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) that supports councils and their partners to collect data.
