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Plan to make city 'smoke-free' by 2030 approved
A council's plan to make a city "smoke free" by 2030 has been approved.
Liverpool City Council said it wanted to "denormalise" smoking by banning it from more public places and using existing laws to step up controls on the supply of tobacco.
The authority said about 17% of the city's residents were smokers, who each spent up to £2,500 annually on the habit.
It said almost £2m would be used to clamp down on the city’s "biggest preventable killer", support people in quitting smoking and stop others from taking it up.
A report to the council's cabinet said the aim of the Stopping the Start plan was to help Liverpudlians "to live longer, healthier and wealthier lives in a city where they can play and work without exposure to the harms of tobacco smoke".
When it was first announced in May, a council representative said smoking was "a major cause of health inequalities in Liverpool".
They said it caused "avoidable illness" and created a "greater burden for the most disadvantaged families and communities".
Existing funding of £1.1m ringfenced through the core public health grant will be used to fund the project in 2024/25, with an additional £831,000 made available through a support grant.
Source: BBC News, 5 June 2024
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Bedford council working to tackle health issues like smoking and obesity
Bedford Borough Council is working with other councils to make it easier for residents to get help to improve their health, a meeting heard.
A report presented to the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Monday, June 3) said one in three deaths are linked to behavioural risk factors such as smoking, alcohol, physical inactivity, and poor diet.
Martin Westerby, head of public health programmes at Central Bedfordshire Council, said:
“Smoking, obesity – being overweight, inactivity and alcohol misuse continue to be the four biggest causes of premature mortality, as well as contributing significantly towards the inequalities that we see in health and increasing that demand for health and social care.
“We know that if you experience one of those issues you’re likely to experience more than one.
“However, if you want to access [support] services you very often have to assess services independently,” he said.
The committee heard that Public Health is developing an Integrated Behaviour Change Service (IBCS) across Bedford Borough, Central Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes.
Mr Westerby said bringing all the support services into an integrated point of contact will make it easier to get the support needed.
“Initially we’re looking to create stop smoking services, weight management (or healthy weight services as we’re going to be calling them), [and] some NHS health checks, because we also want NHS health checks to be part of this service.
“We want [it] to be a flexible offer,” he said.
The work to provide the IBCS is being led by Central Bedfordshire Council, and it is anticipated that the service will go live in April 2025.
Source: Bedford Today, 5 June 2024
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Smokers butt out as birds nest in cigarette bin
A pair of blue tits forced smokers to dispose of their dog ends elsewhere after taking up residence in a cigarette bin.
The birds nested in the bin at Norwich Research Park, and a notice was attached asking smokers to use a bucket instead.
Healthcare technician Mark Pointer said a colleague alerted him to the nesting birds.
"As we got close to the cigarette box, a bird popped out, which I recognised as a blue tit," he said.
The bin is in a smoking shelter at the park's Innovation Centre. Mr Pointer said the chicks had now fledged and left the cigarette bin, but said staff enjoyed the experience of observing them.
Source: BBC News, 5 June 2024
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