Camber Sands

Coastal control at Camber Sands - Steve Benn

Beach patrols conjure up images of Pamela Anderson and Bay Watch, but the reality is far different.

Kaddy Lee-Preston goes behind the scenes at Camber Sands as the latest recruit to the beach patrol.

She meets Steve Benn, the Coastal Control Officer for Camber, who directs a team of up to 20 people from his beachside control room.

The fine sands and safe waters of Camber have always been a draw for families and the beach retains its traditional seaside charm.

But it's not just a bucket and spade resort.

It briefly became a centre for the rave scene and is now attracting a younger, trendier, sportier set.

The lifeguards are responsible for public safety and medical emergencies.

Life's a beach - the beach control at Camber

Kaddy goes out to work with the beach patrol as the team look out for the safety of the beach's visitors.

They're always watching weather conditions carefully - an orange flag signals an offshore wind and warns beach visitors of the risk of being blown out to sea.

As well as safety, the beach patrol also has the job of ensuring that the beach is clean.

On a busy day, there can be up to five tonnes of rubbish to clean up at the end of the day!

Links relating to this story:

• Rother District Council - Beach patrols
• East Sussex County - Camber Sands

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites

Lottery

Sue Featherstone checks out who benefits from the Lottery

If you're a fan of the National Lottery, but are fed up with where the money's spent, then you're not alone.

Some people are so disillusioned they've stopped playing the Lottery altogether.

They believe that the money is being wasted on projects that don't benefit them.

One of those people is Rochester resident Sue Featherstone.

Outraged at Lottery cash going to guinea pig farmers in Peru, she asks, are the people who spend the most on the Lottery reaping the rewards?

Inside Out gets her to visit several Lottery projects across the South East to see what she thinks.

Amongst the projects she visits are Bexhill's De la Warr Pavilion, the Historic Docks at Chatham, and The Sunlight Centre in Gillingham.

Reaping the benefits

Two thousand and two hundred projects have received funding from the Lottery across the South East.

Twenty eight pence of every Lottery ticket bought goes to fund big and small projects.

The money is distributed by organisations like the Arts Council, the Millennium Commission and National Heritage.

Sue Featherstone is shocked to learn that the government takes a 12 per cent cut of all the money.

She's more impressed by the projects which she visits, not realising them some of them have benefited from Lottery funding.

However, she asks whether too much money is being spent on PC projects at the expense of smaller, grass roots groups?

Links relating to this story:

• BBC - National Lottery
• National Lottery
• Lottery - Good Causes
• National Lottery Commission
• Camelot

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites

Chinese herbalists

Herbalism - Inside Out goes undercover

Inside Out investigates how some Chinese herbalists are prescribing potentially dangerous remedies without a proper consultation.

We sent an undercover reporter to branches of the Herbmedic chain in southern England.

On each occasion, the reporter claimed to be suffering from tiredness and was prescribed herbal remedies after a consultation lasting less than five minutes.

The herbalists, who describe themselves as "doctors", didn't ask any questions about the patient's medical history or take any notes.

Inside Out secretly filmed the consultations and showed the footage to Andrew Fowler, a past President of the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine.

He said, "It makes me very angry. It's a disservice to Chinese medicine because it has a long and noble tradition that is being undermined by what is essentially malpractice."

Boom in Chinese medicine

In recent years there has been a big increase in the number of Traditional Chinese Medicine outlets in shopping centres around the country.

Michael McIntyre, Chairman of the European Herbal Practitioners' Association, says that many of these shops are failing customers:

"Unfortunately your experience with your three consultations exactly mirrors the information I have had from countless patients who are dissatisfied with what has happened to them in high street stores."

Herbmedic has been investigated by the authorities in the past.

In 2002, trading standards officers prosecuted the branch in Southampton for selling herbal remedies with 26 times the permitted legal limit of lead.

And in October 2003, the Advertising Standards Authority banned Herbmedic from describing its practitioners as "doctors".

Despite the ban, all three of the stores visited by Inside Out referred to the herbalist as the doctor.

Fully qualified

Herbmedic says that all of its branches have practitioners that are fully qualified with at least five years clinical experience in state-run Chinese hospitals, and that they use their skills and experience to determine the proper length of each consultation.

The company said that the consultation and the remedies prescribed were all totally appropriate because the patient only complained of feeling a bit tired.

More questions would have been asked, they said, if the patient had continued with treatment or presented with a more serious health problem.

But Mazin Al-Khafaji, one of the country's leading practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine, tells the programme that it is impossible to reach a proper diagnosis so quickly:

"A five minute consultation can't possibly give sufficient information to proceed, so any medication that is prescribed in that time has to be incorrect."

Links relating to this story:

• Herbmedic
• Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine
• Journal of Chinese Medicine
• Institute for Traditional Medicine
• European Herbal Practitioners' Association

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites