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** 20 June 2024
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** UK
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** Sharp rise in use of high-strength vapes, research shows (#1)
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** BAT’s plans for vape vending machines in pubs revealed (#5)
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** Roles created to help smokers on hospital grounds (#2)
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** Ex-smoker backs support service after teeth recovery (#3)
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** NHS will need extra £38bn a year by 2030, thinktank warns (#4)
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** UK
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** Sharp rise in use of high-strength vapes, research shows

The use of high-strength nicotine vapes has increased sharply in the last three years, a study has found.

Researchers found that in June 2021, only 6.6% of people were using the highest-strength vapes, defined as those near the legal limit of 20mg/ml of nicotine, yet by January 2024 that had increased to 32.5% of users.

The study, by UCL researchers, looked at a survey of 7,314 adults who vape in England in order to assess how the use of vapes of different nicotine strengths had changed during that period.

The research, published in the journal Addiction and funded by Cancer Research UK, found the biggest increase among 18--24-year-old vapers, rising from 3.9% between July 2016 and June 2021 to 53.1% in 2024.

The researchers cautioned the government against taxing vape products according to nicotine strength, as suggested in the tobacco and vapes bill, despite the increase in the proportion of vapers using high-nicotine products.

Dr Sarah Jackson, the lead author of the study, based at the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, said that current plans to tax high-nicotine vapes at a higher rate may make it less affordable to quit smoking.

She said: “Our study shows a sharp increase in the use of high-strength nicotine e-liquids in England since 2021.

“Nicotine may be addictive, but it is not what causes the great majority of harms from smoking. For smokers trying to quit, vaping with higher-strength nicotine is likely to be more effective, as it satisfies cravings more quickly and provides better relief from withdrawal symptoms.

“Taxing higher-strength nicotine products at higher rates will make the most effective way to quit less affordable, which may drive vapers towards lower-strength e-liquids and potentially undermine smoking cessation attempts. Of smokers who had quit within the last year and were vaping, we found that around 40% reported using those products which would attract the highest proposed tax rate.”

Deborah Arnott, the chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health and co-author of the study, said: “Curbing underage vaping can best be achieved by making all vapes less appealing and increasing the price at point of sale, whatever their nicotine content.

“Those are the policies which will be most effective in stopping children from starting to vape in the first place. However, if we are to also ensure that vapes remain an effective quitting tool for adults, smokers should not be discouraged from using higher nicotine content vapes, which are likely to be more effective quitting aids.”

Source: The Guardian, 20 June 2024

See also: Sarah E. Jackson, Jamie Brown, Lion Shahab, Deborah Arnott, Linda Bauld, Sharon Cox. Nicotine strength of e-liquids used by adult vapers in Great Britain: A population survey 2016 to 2024 ([link removed]) . Addiction. 2024.
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** BAT’s plans for vape vending machines in pubs revealed

BAT is working to roll out vape and nicotine pouch automated vending machines in pubs and bars, Better Retailing can reveal.

Job adverts show the tobacco giant is hiring at least 12 reps to target on-trade establishments with the aim of “securing new locations for vending machine and other business development solutions to ultimately increase sell out of specific BAT related products”.

Target areas include Basingstoke, Birmingham, Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge, Coventry, Crawley, Edinburgh, Exeter, Maidstone, Reading, Royal Tunbridge and Sevenoaks.

Vape vending machines in pubs have attracted concerns around potential underage sales. Asked about how the devices will prevent underage sales, BAT responded: “Our machines will use best in class age verification, to ensure that this essential principle is maintained.”

BAT failed to answer when asked about the likely impact on sales in nearby newsagents and convenience stores selling the same BAT products.

Source: Better Retailing, 18 June 2024
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** Roles created to help smokers on hospital grounds

New dedicated officers will give people found smoking in the grounds of Nottingham's hospitals advice on quitting. All Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust (NUH) buildings and grounds have been smoke free since 2006.

Officials said the trust deals with around 30 formal complaints - and more unofficial ones - every year about smokers gathering around entrances. Now, two new roles have been created to speak to smokers about help and guidance on stopping the habit.

Currently, the trust talks to inpatients and maternity patients identified as smokers, offering support via the NUH Tobacco Dependency Service. This can involve nicotine-replacement therapy (NRT) and a 12-week stop smoking programme. Staff are offered support via the Smokefree app.

The new officers will highlight quitting initiatives and support using a nationally-approved system called the Very Brief Advice (VBA) method.

Zahida Niazi, Smokefree lead at NUH, said: “Smokers are not just putting their own health at risk, but the health of anyone around them. "Stopping people smoking on our hospital grounds will protect patients, visitors, and staff from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke."

Source: BBC News, 20 June 2024
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** Ex-smoker backs support service after teeth recovery

A former smoker, who recovered teeth she had lost to gum disease, has said she "would urge anyone" to ditch the addiction.

Sarah Howes, who is in her 60s and from south Oxfordshire, used to smoke 60 cigarettes a day, which led to her losing most of her upper teeth. She has recommended Oxfordshire County Council’s Stop for Life Oxon services to people looking to quit. The council said it had already helped thousands of people across the county with replacement therapies.

Ms Howes developed the habit in her teens, "when growing up and smoking went hand-in-hand with drinking and dancing". Getting fit served as her initial motivation to cut down but noticed getting "a bit wheezy" during aerobic classes and gym sessions in her 40s. “But the main reason I quit was because I lost most of my top teeth due to gum disease," she said, adding they would fall out when she would bite on food, sometimes something even as soft as a roll.

Her dentist told her that her mouth had been starved of oxygen and smoking had been a key factor. Her dental surgeon had told her she would "categorically" not carry out the operation if Ms Howes had not given up smoking completely.

She said she had used multiple therapies and now attended the gym "two to three times a week" and hiked "regularly with friends". Ms Howes said she would "definitely have used the local Oxfordshire services had they been available to me" and "would urge anyone trying to quit to seek help of that kind”.

Ansaf Azhar, director for public health at the council, said the Stop for Life Oxon service provided "free support, which is proven to help people who want to quit smoking in Oxfordshire”.

Source: BBC News, 20 June 2024
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** NHS will need extra £38bn a year by 2030, thinktank warns

The NHS will need £38bn more a year than planned by the end of the next parliament in order to cut the care backlog and end long treatment delays, political parties have been warned.

Labour and Conservative promises on NHS funding “fall well short” of what the beleaguered health service needs to recover from years of underinvestment, according to the Health Foundation.

The NHS will need such huge sums to cope with the rising demand for care that the next government will face “difficult trade-offs” in how it allocates scarce resources, the thinktank said. Failure to give the health service enough money in coming years would mean recent pledges to improve the NHS will not be fulfilled.

The Department of Health and Social Care’s budget will rise by £7.6bn to £196.9bn by 2029/30 under current spending plans. But it will have to increase by £38bn more than that to £235.4bn if whoever is in power after 4 July wants to see “sustained improvement” in its performance, Health Foundation modelling found.

“The health service is in crisis and the main political parties have said they want to fix it. Yet the funding they have so far promised falls well short of the level needed to make improvements,” said Anita Charlesworth, the director of the thinktank’s long-term economic analysis department.

The NHS will need to receive average annual budget rises of 3.8% over the next decade to keep up with the ageing, growing and increasingly sick population, the thinktank calculated.

NHS bosses endorsed the Health Foundation’s analysis. “Put simply, if a new government is going to fulfil campaign promises to tackle NHS backlogs and improve performance, then it will have to invest further,” said Dr Layla McCay, the NHS Confederation’s director of policy. The NHS will need “billions of extra funding”, she added.

Julian Hartley, the chief executive of hospitals group NHS Providers, said health trusts desperately need more capital funding to tackle the effects of “chronic underinvestment in buildings and facilities”, which has left some hospitals so decrepit that they “threaten patient and staff safety”.

Source: The Guardian, 20 June 2024

See also: The Health Foundation - How much funding does the NHS need over the next decade? ([link removed])
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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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