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Increased support and vape use could see three million fewer smokers in UK
Ramped up support to help smokers quit, including the prescribing of vapes, could see the UK’s smoking rate halve within the next five to 10 years, a new report has suggested.
These measures are laid out in a new report led by public services expert Lord Filkin – alongside other experts and the King’s Fund think tank – which argued poor health of the nation costs almost £16bn a year.
Those behind the report, published last week, suggested that committing to spending on preventative measures should ‘surprisingly’ be affordable and must become a cross-party ‘covenant for health’.
As such, it said the UK should commit to spending 10p out of every £1 of the NHS budget on preventative measures to improve the nation’s health within the next five to 10 years.
Alongside smoking, the report isolated obesity, alcohol, children’s health, physical activity, air quality, mental health and health inequalities as areas where preventative measures could help improve the nation’s health.
The report recognised that ‘more funding’ would be needed to help reduce the number of smokers across the UK, but suggested that costs ‘could be borne by the tobacco industry’.
Among its recommendations on smoking, the experts said there was a need to prescribe vaping to help smokers quit whilst ‘clamping down’ on the marketing and sale of vapes to children.
The report concluded ‘Our high level of premature, often avoidable ill health, damages lives, our society, localities and our economy. Without resolute action it will get worse. We must act so that lives are not degraded, and to sustain our health services and labour supply’.
Source: The Pharmacist, 24 July 2023
See also: A Covenant for Health Report July 2023 here
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Stronger powers to combat illicit tobacco come into force
New sanctions have come into force which will mean businesses and individuals selling illicit tobacco can receive a penalty of up to £10,000.
Trading Standards Officers will now have the power to refer cases to HMRC for further investigation where businesses or individuals have been found to sell illicit tobacco. HMRC, where appropriate, will administer the penalties and ensure the appropriate sanction is applied and enforced.
Businesses found to be selling illicit tobacco could receive a penalty of between £2,500 and £10,000, have their tobacco products seized or lose their license to buy tobacco for resale in the UK.
The new powers build on the successful work of Operation CeCe, a joint initiative between HMRC and National Trading Standards to tackle the illicit tobacco trade, which has removed 27 million illicit cigarettes and 7,500kg of hand rolling tobacco from sale in its first two years.
Trade in illicit tobacco costs the exchequer over £2 billion in lost tax revenue each year. It also damages legitimate businesses, undermines public health and facilitates the supply of tobacco to young people.
Source: Wales24, 26 July 2023
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Government progress on pharmacy ‘requires improvement’
Progress on government commitments to support community pharmacy ‘require improvement’, an expert panel commissioned by the parliamentary Health and Social Care Committee has found.
The panel concluded that the government had not met several of the commitments it made in the 2019 Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework (CPCF), including a commitment to review the sector’s funding model.
This was despite ‘significantly’ increased demand for community pharmacy services, ‘with community pharmacies struggling to deliver services within the existing funding model, or even to remain open’, the panel said in its report.
Professor Dame Jane Dacre, who chaired the expert panel, said: ‘Pharmacy plays a key role in the delivery of care so it’s disappointing that progress overall to deliver on the government’s commitments was rated as “requires improvement”.
And she said that ‘no headway’ had been made on integrating pharmacists within clinical teams, and that when it came to training and education, there was insufficient funding available to send staff on courses.
Steve Brine, who chairs the Health and Social Care Committee that commissioned the report, said it made for ‘sobering reading’. He added that ‘success will rest on resolving challenges around funding, the digital infrastructure, and crucially, workforce skills and training’.
Janet Morrison, chief executive of Community Pharmacy England (CPE), said ‘we all know that many of the issues that community pharmacies are struggling with relate to insufficient funding of the sector, which has been cut, in real terms, by 30% over the last seven years. An urgent funding uplift and more support is now required for community pharmacies before the consequences are felt by more and more patients across the country’.
Source: The Pharmacist, 25 July 2023
See the full report here
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ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.
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