15- year-old Darlington girl Katie Turner was hospitalised with severe burns after a 21-minute session at a solarium.

This should not happen.

Currently Government guidelines advise that no one under the age of 16 should be allowed to use UV tanning lamps, but clearly those running tanning salons are disregarding this, with serious and all to frequent consequences.

Restricting or banning the use of sunbeds by under-16s has been discussed in Parliament and the Minister for Public Health, Dawn Primarolo, said:

"I am sure that the whole House is appalled at the prospect of children who use tanning machines being severely burned, and at the fact that they are using them in an unsupervised manner."
"I will certainly consider how it will be possible to collect the information regarding salons with tanning machines that are not properly staffed, or not staffed at all, and that therefore pose a greater risk to minors—and, indeed, to all who use them."

The Department of Health is looking at how best to tackle the issue as part of the national Cancer Strategy.