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EU proposing post-Brexit joint youth work and study scheme with UK | Politics News

Young people could be able to move more easily between the UK and Europe and stay longer to work, study and train under proposed plans by the European Union

Under the proposal, which has been put forward by the European Commission, new rules would be drawn up to allow for greater movement between the UK and EU countries for people aged between 18 and 30.

Formal negotiations have not yet begun, and a UK source told Sky News no formal proposal had been put forward by Brussels to begin negotiating on.

The proposal will be further discussed by the European Council, which represents all the nations, before negotiations start in earnest.

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The plans proposed by the EU would allow young people to stay in Europe for periods of four years, with the same rules extended to EU citizens coming to Britain.

It would also mean EU students paying the same fees as British ones. Since Brexit, UK universities have charged much higher fees to European students.

Announcing the move, the European Commission said it wanted to take an “innovative” approach to tackling the barriers experienced by young people looking to travel from the EU to the UK and vice versa for longer periods.

“The objective would be to facilitate youth exchanges, making it easier for young citizens to travel, work and live in the UK, with reciprocity for young UK nationals in a member state,” said the Commission, in a statement.

“The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union has hit young people in the EU and UK who would like to study, work and live abroad particularly hard,” claimed Maros Sefcovic, the Commission’s vice-president who oversees relations with the UK.

“Our aim is to rebuild human bridges between young Europeans on both sides of the Channel.”

This scheme is separate to the 90-day visa-less travel that UK citizens can take advantage of on the continent.

According to the Commission, they do not foresee the scheme allowing UK citizens to travel around the Schengen area unimpeded, but rather the visa would only be valid for a single state.

It added: “It is not about conferring to young UK nationals the benefits of the fundamental freedom of movement enjoyed by EU citizens.”

However, visas would not be “purpose-bound” and would allow people to work, travel or study.

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UK Border control is seen in Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport in London June 4, 2014. REUTERS/Neil Hall
Image:
The EU want to negotiate an agreement as a whole, rather than country by country. Pic: Reuters

Rather than just being a free exchange, the EU also says it wants people taking part in the scheme to be subject to checks with the bloc or the UK able to reject applications – for example if someone was thought to be a threat to public policy, security or health.

The UK government currently has a series of agreements with 13 individual countries – including New Zealand, South Korea, Andorra, Iceland and India, which provide a similar pathway to what the EU is proposing.

The government has said it is open to the idea of extending those agreements with European countries, but has shied away from doing a pan-EU deal and there will be those who fear that an agreement such as this would be the first step towards the UK being drawn into a “freedom of movement” deal.

The EU said it wants a group deal to “ensure that all member states are treated equally in respect of mobility of young people to the UK” – but the current government seems to prefer its current set of agreements.

The Commission has rejected these fears, with sources insisting there is no intention of either pulling the UK into such a deal, or even offering it.

A Number 10 spokesperson said: “We have spoken about wanting to reduce legal migration and also about wanting to support UK talent and skills and that’s why we have a system in place whereby we have a number of agreements with individual EU member states where that works in our interests and we have that rather than a Commission-wide agreement.”

Labour denied it had plans for a youth mobility scheme.

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Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, a trade body representing the hospitality sector in the UK, welcomed the move.

She said: “Such an agreement would be a huge success for hospitality and tourism and, practically, it would solve challenges for the live music and events sectors.”

Free vapes given to smokers at hospitals could help thousands quit, study suggests | Science & Tech News

Free vapes in emergency departments could help thousands quit smoking, a study has suggested.

Research from the University of East Anglia (UEA) said that providing A&E patients with e-cigarettes and a referral to a stop smoking adviser helped them kick the habit more than those who were just pointed to advice.

Dr Ian Pope, of UEA’s Norwich Medical School, added that the scientists behind the study now believe that “if this intervention was widely implemented it could result in more than 22,000 extra people quitting smoking each year”.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that about 6.4 million adults in the UK were smokers in 2022, while the NHS says around 76,000 people in the UK die every year from smoking.

Vaping: How harmful is it, is it better than smoking cigarettes, and what’s the evidence?

In their study – carried out between January and August two years ago in six emergency departments across the UK – the team offered around 484 daily smokers brief advice from a dedicated adviser while at hospital, along with an e-cigarette starter kit, and a referral to stop smoking services.

Vapes for sale in London. Pic: AP
Image:
Vapes for sale in London. Pic: AP

A second group of 488 patients were only given written information on how to access stop smoking services.

After six months, researchers offered members of the study a carbon monoxide test to confirm if they had given up cigarettes. Those given vapes and a referral were 76% more likely to have stopped.

Comparing the groups, 7.2% of those given vapes stopped smoking at six months while 4.1% of those given just advice had quit.

The first group were also more likely to try to stop, and self-reported that their seven-day abstinence from smoking after six months was a little over 23% compared to 13% in the group signposted to services.

Hazel Cheeseman, deputy chief executive of public health charity Action on Smoking and Health, said that the findings “are compelling” and should be “carefully considered by those in the NHS and local government who are planning services for smokers”.

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An NHS spokesperson said in response to the report: “Smoking costs the NHS and the taxpayer billions every year in avoidable health and social care costs.

“Encouraging more people to stop smoking tobacco will support them to have healthier lives.”

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Is vaping a cancer risk?

It’s not the first time vapes have been suggested for Britain’s hospitals. In 2018, Public Health England recommended that hospitals should sell e-cigarettes and provide patients with vaping lounges.

However, it comes after another study recently found vaping damages the DNA of its users in a similar way to smokers who develop cancer.

And it follows Rishi Sunak’s announcement of plans to ban disposable vapes in a bid to crack down on their use among children.

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Published in the Emergency Medicine Journal, the UEA study said that “while the evidence for using e-cigarettes as a cessation intervention is growing, not enough research is being done to understand how to most effectively prevent e-cigarette use among adolescents, while making them available in a targeted way for cessation”.

AI could predict patients’ future health conditions, study finds | Science & Tech News

Artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to predict the type of health conditions a patient is likely to develop in the future, a study has found.

The technology could be used to help doctors when it comes to monitoring patients or making decisions around diagnosis, researchers said.

The AI tool, known as Foresight, belongs to the same family of AI models as ChatGPT but has been trained using information from NHS electronic records.

It was developed by researchers from King’s College London (KCL), University College London (UCL), King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

The researchers trained three different models of Foresight using data from more than 811,000 patients from two NHS trusts in London and a publicly available dataset in the US.

It was given 10 possible disorders a patient may experience next based on their records.

When using data from NHS hospitals, Foresight was able to correctly identify the condition 68% and 76% of the time. It was accurate 88% of the time when using US data.

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Zeljko Kraljevic, research fellow in health informatics, biostatistics and health informatics at KCL and the first author of the study – published in The Lancet Digital Health – said the findings show the tool “can achieve high levels of precision in predicting health trajectories of patients, demonstrating it could be a valuable tool to aid decision-making and inform clinical research”.

Senior author Richard Dobson, a professor of medical informatics at KCL and UCL and theme lead for informatics at the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), said: “It is an exciting time for AI in healthcare, and to develop effective tools we must ensure that we use appropriate data to train our models and work towards a shared purpose of supporting healthcare systems to support patients.”

The research team is now seeking more hospitals to be involved in developing Foresight 2, which Prof Dobson said will be “a more accurate language model”.

Blood test for Alzheimer’s disease could be as accurate as painful lumbar puncture, study suggests | Science & Tech News

A blood test could be just as good at detecting the signs of Alzheimer’s disease as painful and invasive lumbar punctures, research suggests.

Measuring levels of a protein called p-tau217 in the blood could be just as accurate at detecting signs of the progressive condition, experts say.

The protein is a marker for biological changes in the brain for people with Alzheimer’s disease, which is a form of dementia.

The new findings have the potential to “revolutionise” diagnosis for people who are suspected to have Alzheimer’s, experts say.

It could also be better than a range of other tests currently under development.

In the study of 786 people, the researchers were able to use the ALZpath p-tau217 test to identify patients as likely, intermediate and unlikely to have Alzheimer’s disease.

** HOLD FOR RELEASE/PUBLICATION DATE TBD FOR MEDICAL WRITER MARILYNN MARCHIONE STORY ** Dr. William Burke goes over PET brain scan Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018 at Banner Alzheimers Institute in Phoenix. It may be too late to stop Alzheimer's in people who already have some mental decline but Banner is conducting two studies that target the very earliest brain changes while memory and thinking skills are still intact in hope of preventing the disease. (AP Photo/Matt York).
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Images from an Alzheimer’s brain scan. File pic: AP

“This study is a hugely welcome step in the right direction as it shows that blood tests can be just as accurate as more invasive and expensive tests at predicting if someone has features of Alzheimer’s disease in their brain,” said Dr Richard Oakley, associate director of research and innovation at the Alzheimer’s Society.

“Furthermore, it suggests results from these tests could be clear enough to not require further follow-up investigations for some people living with Alzheimer’s disease, which could speed up the diagnosis pathway significantly in future.

“However, we still need to see more research across different communities to understand how effective these blood tests are across everyone who lives with Alzheimer’s disease.”

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Test could turn tide on devastating disease

This is a significant step towards a screening test for Alzheimer’s.

It detects a protein in the blood that is also found in the brains of people with the disease.

And the Swedish researchers say it is as accurate as existing tests.

At the moment Alzheimer’s is diagnosed either with special PET brain scans or samples of spinal fluid. The NHS doesn’t have enough machines or specialist staff to do that at the scale required.

It means that even if people ever get a diagnosis, it often comes when the disease has significantly progressed.

That matters because there are drugs coming down the tracks that have been shown in clinical trials to significantly slow the decline in memory and brain function.

But they have to be given at an early stage to be effective. That’s why doctors are excited about this test.

It needs to be validated in bigger clinical trials and in a diverse population.

But the hope is that in the near future it could be offered every few years to everyone over 50 to turn the tide on a devastating disease.

‘Huge potential’

Currently the only way to prove someone has a build-up of the proteins in the brain is to have a lumbar puncture or amyloid PET scan, which are available in only about one in 20 NHS memory clinics.

A lumbar puncture involves a needle being inserted into the lower back, between the bones in the spine.

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November 2022: New Alzheimer’s drug may be too late for some

Dr Sheona Scales, director of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “This study suggests that measuring levels of a protein called p-tau217 in the blood could be as accurate as currently used lumbar punctures for detecting the biological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, and superior to a range of other tests currently under development.

“This adds to a growing body of evidence that this particular test has huge potential to revolutionise diagnosis for people with suspected Alzheimer’s.”

However, she said a better picture is needed of how these types of blood tests perform day-to-day in real-world healthcare systems.

The study from Dr Nicholas Ashton at the University of Gothenburg, and colleagues, is published in the Jama Neurology journal.

RSV vaccine could cut baby hospital admissions by more than 80%, study suggests | Science & Tech News

A vaccine to combat a common seasonal virus among babies could reduce hospital admissions by more than 80%, a trial has shown.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) impacts 90% of children before they reach the age of two, often causing a mild cold-like illness.

But infection can also lead to severe lung problems like pneumonia, and an estimated 30,000 babies and youngsters are admitted to hospital in the UK each year – putting extra pressure on the NHS.

Scientists have said a jab called nirsevimab could offer a solution after a study suggested a single shot provided immediate protection against chest infections for up to six months.

The trial found this could lead to an 83% reduction in RSV-related hospital admissions.

It is already being rolled out in the US and Spain and is being considered for a UK rollout, where it has been approved but not yet made available on the NHS.

Experts who worked on the study said the findings showed it was safe and could protect thousands of babies.

What is nirsevimab?

Nirsevimab is a monoclonal antibody, which are man-made proteins designed to mimic the human immune system’s natural antibodies.

Like other vaccines, it is administered via an injection.

The study included 8,058 babies up to the age of 12 months, with a randomly assigned group of them given a single dose and the others given usual treatment.

Just 11 who got the jab ended up in hospital for RSV-related infections, compared to 60 in the standard group.

The researchers said this corresponded to an efficacy of 83.2%.

Jab could ‘dramatically’ help NHS

Sir Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group at the University of Oxford, said the jab could help combat a virus that places “huge pressure” on Britain’s health system.

During the past two winters, cases were higher than usual after COVID pandemic measures in previous years suppressed cases – meaning children had much lower immunity.

Sir Andrew said the jab could help “protect the youngest in society and dramatically alleviate winter strain in the NHS”.

One of the scientists involved in the study, Professor Saul Faust from the University of Southampton, said he hoped it would help the UK decide on how to proceed with a national vaccination rollout.

The University of Southampton was one of three UK universities whose experts worked on the research, along with University Hospital Southampton and St George’s University Hospital, London.

The research was funded by Sanofi and AstraZeneca and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

COVID-19: 167,000 people may have caught coronavirus in hospital in England during second wave, study suggests | UK News

Up to 167,000 people may have contracted coronavirus in hospitals in England during the second wave of the pandemic, a study of healthcare-related infections has suggested.

Scientists who assessed COVID infections between June 2020 and March 2021 said their findings show how many cases started in hospitals and why, noting factors such as limited numbers of single rooms.

They concluded that hospitals needed to be better equipped to limit the transmission of future viruses.

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Hospital transmission puts vulnerable people at risk, affects healthcare workers and potentially drives transmission in the community.

But despite the obvious risks, there hasn’t been much work done to assess the extent of the problem.

A team from Oxford University, led by Professor of Epidemiology, Ben Cooper, have tried to put that right by studying data from 145 English NHS acute hospital trusts, representing a combined 356 hospitals with around 100,000 beds.

They looked at the number of COVID infections, how many staff working days were missed because of the virus and how the likely source of infection was classified at the time.

They found nearly 17,000 (16,950) infections in hospital patients were classed as having definite links to healthcare, and more than 19,000 (19,355) were thought to probably have a healthcare connection.

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However, the researchers calculated that only around one in four (26%) of such infections might actually have been recorded, as many patients may have been discharged before testing positive, for example.

Once they factored that into their projections, they estimated that hospital-acquired infections in the period were between 95,000 and 167,000.

COVID ward at a hospital in Merseyside in 2020
Image:
COVID ward at a hospital in Merseyside in 2020

In other words, 1 to 2% of all hospital admissions likely resulted in such an infection over the study period.

Professor Cooper’s team found geographical variations in the incidence of infections, with the highest rates in northwest regions of England, and the lowest in the South West and London areas.

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They suggested the low availability of single rooms and reduced heating of hospital buildings could play a part.

The vaccination of healthcare workers was another driver of lower infection rates.

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Their findings could show hospitals how to reduce transmissions, which in turn could protect vulnerable patients and healthcare workers, as well as reduce community transmission in the future, the authors said.

The COVID-19 public inquiry was told on Tuesday that fewer people might have died if lockdown had started sooner.

Women ‘suffer more from ME’, according to largest ever study into the disease | UK News

Not only are women far more likely to suffer from ME, they’re also more likely to have more symptoms, and co-occurring conditions that are more severe, according early results of the largest ever study into the disease.

The DecodeME study has so far recruited more than 17,000 people in the UK with a diagnosis of ME or myalgic encephalomyelitis – sometimes called chronic fatigue syndrome.

The researchers aim to study 20,000 DNA samples from this growing group to learn whether ME is partly genetic. Not only could it point to treatments but may also help de-mystify a neglected, and often maligned disease.

“For a long time, people didn’t even truly believe that this illness existed,” says study lead Professor Chris Ponting, from the University of Edinburgh.

“The fact this study is looking into the biological causes of ME… I think it will go a long way not just to help people find treatment eventually, but also debunk some of the really harmful stigma as well.”

It is estimated that more than 250,000 people in the UK have ME.

It leaves patients with debilitating and persistent exhaustion that’s made worse following normal levels of exertion.

But it also causes a wide range of other symptoms, conditions like brain fog, muscle pain even slurred speech. Many people are left house or bed bound by their illness.

Of the participants involved so far, more than 83% are women.

Women in the study were also significantly more likely to have one or more conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia or anaemia associated with their ME than men.

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Combining these findings with the genetic data they are collecting, the researchers hope to gain insights into why different groups of people are affected by ME, in what ways, and what its potential triggers could be.

Many cases of ME, for example, are preceded by an infection of some kind, a similar phenomenon as seen in people with long COVID.

‘A real stigma and mistreatment’

The initial findings, says Prof Ponting, suggest their genetic analysis will have to treat men and women differently. The gender bias may also point to why ME has been neglected for so long, despite affecting huge numbers of people.

There is good evidence from other diseases that less research and fewer drugs are devoted to those affecting women.

“At the real heart of this is [that there] has been a real stigma and mistreatment of people with ME for years,” says Sonya Chowdhury, chief executive of Action for ME.

The charity has coordinated recruitment for the study and hopes that this first large-scale investigation will change thinking about ME.

“Having the basic data and the basic science there means that researchers are more likely to take the illness seriously,” says Ms Chowdhury. “We should be shocked there hasn’t been investment in research for decades.”

Pippa Stacey was first diagnosed with ME at the age of 19 and now writes, blogs and campaigns about her illness.

She filmed herself giving her DNA sample for the DecodeME study and shared it with her 14,500 Instagram followers to encourage others to do the same.

“Knowing work of this magnitude is taking place – that in itself is a huge thing,” she says. ” I feel a level of hope that there’s something to reach for.”

AI tools can ‘safely’ read breast cancer scans, preliminary study suggests | Science & Tech News

Artificial intelligence (AI) can “safely” read breast cancer screening images, a preliminary study suggests.

Researchers found computer-aided detection could spot cancer in mammograms – X-ray pictures of the breast – at a “similar rate” to two radiologists.

The NHS is already looking at how it can implement such technology in its breast screening programme.

However, the authors of the study said the results are “not enough on their own to confirm that AI is ready to be implemented in mammography screening”.

Previous studies into whether AI can accurately diagnose breast cancer in mammograms have been carried out retrospectively – where the technology assesses scans already examined by doctors.

But the new interim study pit AI-supported screening against standard care.

The randomised control trial, published in the journal Lancet Oncology, involved more than 80,000 women from Sweden with an average age of 54.

Half of the scans were assessed by two radiologists, known as standard care, while the other half were assessed by the AI-supported screening tool, followed by interpretation by one or two radiologists.

In total 244 women from AI-supported screening were found to have cancer compared with 203 women recalled from standard screening.

Also, the use of AI did not generate more “false positives” – where a scan is incorrectly diagnosed as abnormal. The false-positive rate was 1.5% in both the AI group and the group assessed by radiologists.

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AI could halve screening workload

Researchers said the use of AI could potentially almost halve the screening workload.

There were 36,886 fewer screen readings by radiologists in the AI-supported group compared with the group who received standard care, resulting in a 44% reduction in the screen-reading workload of radiologists, the authors said.

The study is continuing to assess whether AI tools can reduce cancers diagnosed between screenings, with the results not expected for a few years.

But the authors’ interim analysis concludes: “AI-supported mammography screening resulted in a similar cancer detection rate compared with standard double reading, with a substantially lower screen-reading workload, indicating that the use of AI in mammography screening is safe.”

Radiologists could be ‘less burdened by excessive amount of reading’

Lead author Dr Kristina Lang, from Lund University in Sweden, said: “These promising interim safety results should be used to inform new trials and programme-based evaluations to address the pronounced radiologist shortage in many countries, but they are not enough on their own to confirm that AI is ready to be implemented in mammography screening.

“We still need to understand the implications on patients’ outcomes, especially whether combining radiologists’ expertise with AI can help detect interval cancers that are often missed by traditional screening, as well as the cost-effectiveness of the technology.”

She added: “The greatest potential of AI right now is that it could allow radiologists to be less burdened by the excessive amount of reading.

“While our AI-supported screening system requires at least one radiologist in charge of detection, it could potentially do away with the need for double reading of the majority of mammograms, easing the pressure on workloads and enabling radiologists to focus on more advanced diagnostics while shortening waiting times for patients.”

NHS exploring implementing AI

Commenting on the study, an NHS spokesperson said: “The NHS is already exploring how AI could help in breast screening by enabling complicated image analysis very quickly and at scale, which, if proven effective, could in future help speed up diagnosis for many women, detect cancers at an earlier stage, and ultimately save more lives.

“This research is very encouraging, and plans are underway to assess the best ways of implementing this technology into the NHS Breast Screening Programme.”

Residents near airports may be slightly more at risk from symptoms linked to heart problems, study suggests | UK News

People living near to an airport may be slightly more susceptible to symptoms linked to heart problems, a university study has claimed.

A study conduced by Imperial College London looked at hospital admissions for cardiovascular diseases among residents whose homes are under Heathrow Airport’s flight paths.

They analysed research on figures recorded between 2014 and 2018.

According to a paper published in online journal Environment International, researchers found that there was a “small increase of risk” of being admitted to hospital for people who had experienced louder noise during the previous night.

It was revealed that men over the age of 65 were particularly affected.

So, what else did the study find?

The team of researchers found that aircraft noise can disrupt sleep and raise blood pressure as well as stress hormone levels – which are factors linked to heart problems.

However, evidence of an association between aircraft noise and deaths due to a heart attack was limited, although this could be attributed to a small sample size.

Researchers have said, the findings provide “potential” evidence that aircraft noise in the late evening and night-time may be associated with increased risk cardiovascular hospitalisations and deaths in the population living within the Heathrow Airport.

But more research is needed to understand the impact of aircraft noises.

The team added: “This is consistent with a mechanism of action via disturbed sleep and has implications for developing respite measures for the communities situated near busy airports.

“Further research into these potential respite mechanisms and behavioural interventions, including runway rotation and noise insulation initiatives, is needed to understand how best to translate the findings from this study into action.”

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Aircraft noise has been an issue during Heathrow’s long-running bid to gain permission to build a third runway.

Modern planes are a lot more quieter than previous models, but there are concerns that an increase in flights will cause more disturbance.

Heathrow has said reducing the impact of noise from flights is a vital part of its sustainability strategy.

Airport bosses have also said since 2006, they have reduced its noise footprint – the area where residents are exposed to aircraft noise.

‘Shocking’ petrol and diesel price disparity in UK revealed in RAC study | UK News

Drivers are paying 17p more per litre for diesel than petrol across the UK, despite identical wholesale prices.

The average price of a litre of petrol is 146.63p, while diesel costs an average of 164.26p at the forecourt, according to the RAC.

On the wholesale market, both fuels are selling for around 114.5p.

The price disparity was described as “absolutely shocking” by RAC fuel spokesperson Simon Williams.

He said: “At the beginning of March, wholesale diesel was only 6p more expensive than petrol yet there was a 20p-a-litre gap between both fuels on the forecourt.

“Now the two fuels are identical on the wholesale market, and there’s still more than 17p difference at the pump.”

Mr Williams said people who fill up at supermarket petrol stations should have been seeing prices at less than 150p per litre some weeks ago, as these stations are typically 4p per litre cheaper than the UK average.

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But many independent retailers are now charging far less than supermarket rivals, an indication of how much fuel retailing has changed, according to Mr Williams.

“This would have been pretty unusual several years ago but is now rapidly becoming the norm,” he said.

Membership-only chain Costco has been highlighted by RAC by charging just under 150p a litre for diesel.

In January, petrol prices fell below 150p a litre for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The decline was described by the AA as a “huge relief for drivers”.

Diesel did not fall at the same rate, dropping to an average of 172.2p per litre, falling another 7.9p to current costs.