Health campaigners are shocked by a survey that has revealed many councils are still providing and profiting from artificial tanning facilities in their leisure centres, despite the steep rise in skin cancer cases in the UK.

The survey, conducted by the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH), has revealed that 30 per cent of local authorities offer sunbeds and some even allow coin-operated unmanned tanning services.

The CIEH believes that local authorities are obliged to play a more active role in skin cancer prevention. David Kidney, CIEH head of policy, said in a statement:

“Having sunbeds in council leisure facilities premises is like having cigarette vending machines in a hospital – local authorities have a duty to look after the health of people living in their communities.”

“It is an outrage that councils which have an obligation to promote health, fitness and wellbeing are actually making money from an activity that is detrimental to health and increases the risk of malignant melanoma – the fastest growing cancer in the UK,” he added.

As a result of the CIEH’s campaign, 80 councils in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland have removed sunbeds from their leisure centres. The charity has also lobbied for stricter regulations for sunbeds, culminating in the Sunbeds (Regulation) Act 2010, which came into effect in April this year.

Although the law now prohibits sunbed use for under 18s, David Kidney is concerned that, while councils will be legally obliged to abide by the regulation, in practice this will be hard to enforce while there are still unsupervised facilities.
Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is working in partnership with the CIEH to raise public awareness about the dangers of sunbed use and the alarming growth in malignant melanoma cases. According to CRUK’s website, melanoma is the second most common cancer among 15–34-year-olds.

Tracey Loftis, public affairs manager at Cancer Research UK, said in a statement: “Using sunbeds, even infrequently, damages the skin and increases the risk of malignant melanoma – the most dangerous type of skin cancer.”

She emphasised the risk to younger people of developing the disease: “People who first use sunbeds before the age of 35 increase their risk of developing melanoma by 75 per cent and that two young adults are diagnosed with the disease every day in Britain.”

“We urge the UK government to bring in measures to make sure all facilities with sunbeds are staffed,” she concluded.

According to the CIEH website there are 70,000 new cases a year of skin cancer leading to approximately 2,000 deaths each year.

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