UK has highest child skin cancer rate in Europe

British parents may be clued-up when it comes to keeping young babies and infants out of the sun, but it seems that teenagers are just as much in need of sun protection.

Figures out today from the British Association of Dermatologists to mark the start of Sun Awareness Week show that cases of melanoma in UK teenagers rose four-fold in just twenty years.

Worryingly, researchers also found that one in four parents don't put sun screen on their children before they go to school on a sunny day, despite many schools providing no shade over the break period.

'It is frightening that we have the highest rates of skin cancer in our children and teenagers than anywhere else in Europe,' said Nina Goad of the British Association of Dermatologists said, adding that it was 'even more worrying when you consider that so many parents are still not adequately protecting their children in the sun.'

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