Hospitals offer snacks and drinks for sale to patients, staff and visitors. As food choice is heavily influenced by the options on offer, the present study audited the availability and purchase of snacks and drinks available in all NHS hospital sites across a large UK city. Data on the type and nutritional composition of all single-serve snacks (n=407) and drinks (n=238) available for sale in 76 hospital-based food retail units were collected. Purchasing data were obtained for products sold from a subset of food retail units over 4 weeks (6 units; 68,274 product sales). Single-serve snacks and drinks varied markedly in calorie content (snacks 18-641kcals; drinks 0-270kcals), fat content (snacks 0-39g; drinks 0-9g), sugar content (snacks 0.1g-76g; drinks 0-56g) and salt content (snacks 0.2g-2.9g; drinks 0-1.1g). Baked goods were the least healthy snack option (mean content: 383 kcals, 17g fat, 29g sugar and 0.4g salt). Most of the top selling products were crisps, confectionary, baked goods and hot drinks. Only 5/20 top selling snacks were healthy options. While healthy snacks and drinks are readily available in NHS sites, there is scope to reduce the availability of unhealthy options further and to support consumers to make healthier choices.

Superstores, convenience stores, supermarkets, limited line stores, the future for own brand and generic products, the growth in DIY, the non‐food sector. All these subjects are covered by John Allan of Fine Fare who puts his assessment of the market within the context of the developments of the last decade and his predictions for the next. Also tackled are such questions as the fate of the department stores and specialist multiples and chain stores, as well as the prospect for in‐home shopping. This paper was presented to the Oyez IBC conference, “Retailing in the Eighties” in London recently.

IrEB. 23, T9241 CORRESPONDENCE. [ MIOBRm 351 Oflorrtponbuc THE BRACKENBURY TESTIMONIAL. SIR'-There has been a very widely expressed desire that the eminent services of Dr. H. B. Brackenbury to the medical profession should be recognized, having regard particularly to his recent most useful and brilliant work in preparing and presenting the case of the insuranice practitioner before the Court of Inquiry. Steps are already beinig taken to approach insurance practitioners through their Panel Committees, as it is thought that insurance practitioners as such would desire to have a special opportunity of expressing their gratitude. But our correspondence and conversations with many colleagues show that numerous doctors having no connexion with insurance practice would be glad of an opportunity of showing their belief that Dr. Brackenbury's services for many years past have been of great value to the profession as a whole. They consider that Dr. Brackenbury's recent advocacy and conduct of the case of the insurance practitioner have been such as to enhance very considerably the reputation, influence, and prestige of the medical-profession. A large and influential committee is now being formed, and an opportunity will shortly be given to those who wish

No abstract

AT one o'clock in the morning, on the 11th of August, 1822, I was called to Mrs. Welch, a small spare woman, thirty years of age, in her third labour, who was stated by the midwife in attendance,