Obese patients in Essex will be offered £1 for each pound of weight they lose as part of a new NHS scheme.

Obese patients are to be paid to lose weight in the first scheme of its kind in the UK. Volunteers will be given a £1 shopping voucher for every pound in weight they shed under a pilot scheme in Essex.

The Pound-for-Pound project by NHS South West Essex mimics a similar programme in the USA which gives overweight people an incentive to diet and exercise.

Sarah Stanton, 36, has already signed up for the scheme. Weighing in at 14stone 7lbs she hopes to shed two-and-a-half stone;

“I saw the poster and just thought, ‘why not?’ I have gone on loads of diets before and they have not worked so I thought I’d give it a go. I’m not excessively overweight and I just want to get fit and healthy.”

The pilot project, which will be run by the Council’s cultural services department, is inviting 100 volunteers to take part and if successful could be rolled out across the UK. The scheme was comissioned after discovering a quarter of the district’s adult population is obese and the area ranked ’significantly worse’ than the national average.

Recent figures show only one in ten adults is getting enough exercise and three-quarters do not eat a healthy diet.

Due to start in September the scheme will give volunteers advice on how to lose weight, and tell them to return in three months for a weigh-in. Organisers claim the project will be better value for the NHS, instead of paying £75 a month for gym memberships which are often not used after time.

As well as Asda shopping vouchers, dieters will be offered a glamorous photo shoot.

But some weight-loss experts have criticised the scheme saying it could encourage unhealthy methods of losing weight or simply not be sustainable.

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London’s renowned shopping hub Oxford Street are putting on the first ever High Street Fashion Week.

To coincide with the beginning of London’s Fashion Week in September, our favourite high street shops will be showing their fall collections to promote shopping in the capital.

Drapers have reported that over 20 retailers are said to be taking part in a launch to the event, which is likely to be in the form of a catwalk, promoting key high street trends for the season.

We are also told to expect customer discounts, beauty workshops, fashion advice and extended shopping hours - all set up to entice more shoppers to Oxford Street during the build up to the buzz of Fashion week.

The Oxford Street Fashion Week will be run by the New West End Company from 7th - 11th September, a fortnight before the famous London Fashion Week.

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Home-shopping giant N Brown has set its sights on the US to launch its plus-size womenswear brand Simply Be next year!

N Brown, which has already tested the waters overseas with the launch of Simply Be in Germany, said it was in the process of a feasibility study of the US market ahead of a planned launch in 2010.

N Brown chief executive Alan White told Drapers: “We launched Simply Be in Germany because we felt there was a gap in the market with clothing for larger-sized women in their 30s, and from what we’ve seen so far it’s not a well-served niche in the US either. We’re doing the ground work at the moment, along with a feasibility study in the US. Businesses like Boden have done well out there.”

White added that the US was a huge market with a sophisticated home-shopping customer, offering huge potential. He said the performance of Simply Be in Germany, which launched in February, was “so far so good” and that the group would ramp up marketing in the country this autumn.

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