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** 12 August 2020
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** UK
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** VPZ accused of marketing stunt for offering frontline NHS staff vouchers for e-cigs (#1)
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** Chancellor weighs delaying autumn budget on second COVID-19 wave (#2)
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** Severe mental health problems rise amidst coronavirus pandemic (#3)
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** Yorkshire and the Humber: Drinking and smoking fears over Knaresborough train station micropub plans (#4)
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** International
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** South Africa: Tobacco products kill and are not essential, says minister (#5)
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** UK
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NHS staff have been offered vouchers for e-cigs in what a tobacco control group has branded a marketing stunt.
Tobacco control advocates say VPZ, the largest vape retailer in the UK, is getting around a ban on tobacco advertising by offering £100,000 in coupons as a “thank-you” to frontline staff. Frontline staff can purchase e-cigarettes and flavoured juices with the vouchers.
VPZ is part-bankrolled by Philip Morris International, the tobacco company which makes Marlboro. Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) claims the voucher scheme came on the heels of online adverts for Philip Morris products, including its heated tobacco product IQOS
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH, said: “VPZ has been lent millions by Philip Morris. We’ll be reporting this to the authorities.”
Source: Mirror, 11 August 2020
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Chancellor Rishi Sunak is weighing options to shelve his autumn budget if a big second wave of coronavirus hits Britain.
While the Chancellor expects to deliver his budget as planned, it is a sign of government anxiety over a possible autumn COVID-19 spike that he is ready to delay big public spending decisions until after the crisis. Fears over a surge in unemployment when Mr Sunak’s furlough scheme ends in October add to his concerns.
The Chancellor wants his budget to set the economic agenda running up to an election in 2024 or 2025, allocating cash for the prime minister’s “levelling up” election commitment to spread economic prosperity. He also wants to set out a timetable for restoring order to the public finances, controlling the deficit, and cutting debt interest payments, which are expected to involve significant tax rises later in the parliament.
In the event the budget was postponed — probably until spring 2021 — Chancellor Sunak would be expected to produce a “mini-spending review” in the autumn, allocating spending to departments for just a single year.
Carl Emmerson deputy director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said there were good reasons to hold a budget in the autumn, including the potential to announce further measures to support recovery. However, he noted it could make sense to delay the three-year spending review, given the extent of economic uncertainty.
Source: Financial Times, 12 August 2020
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An NHS Confederation report is predicting a 20% increase in demand for mental health services in the coming months. The rise in people reporting severe mental health difficulties comes after a more than 30% drop in referrals to mental health services during the peak of the pandemic.
Factors that might contribute to the need for extra support identified include isolation, substance use, domestic violence, and economic uncertainty. The NHS Confederation's mental health lead, Sean Duggan, said that when coronavirus cases were at their highest, people stayed away from services, as they did from other parts of the NHS. This may explain some of the rises in more severe cases coming forward.
Mental health providers report that as well as seeing patients with "more significant needs", a higher proportion of their referrals are patients who are accessing services for the first time.
Mr Duggan said he did not want to "medicalise everything... It's perfectly normal to feel uneasy and anxious" at such an uncertain time. But nevertheless, there was a "real" increase in people needing mental health services, he added.
NHS England’s COVID-19 response plan acknowledges that "mental health needs may increase significantly". Its plan includes expanding Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services, used to treat common, mild to moderate conditions, and which people can refer themselves to.
It also said people being looked after by community mental health teams should have their care reviewed and that people with severe mental illness should receive more therapy and support.
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** Source: BBC News, 12 August 2020
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** Concerns have been raised over plans to open a micropub at Knaresborough train station, after the application was submitted to Harrogate Borough Council.
Knaresborough Civic Society supports the plan but raised concerns over drinking and smoking on the platform. It said in a statement: “Knaresborough Civic Society have concerns about drinking and smoking on the platform and would request a condition to be added to prohibit these activities.”
Source: Examiner Live, 11 August 2020
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** International
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** Co-operative governance & traditional affairs (COGTA) minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has dismissed a contention by the Fair-Trade Independent Tobacco Association (FITA) that the high court ought to declare tobacco an essential item. The minister responded in an affidavit to FITA’s application for leave to appeal a North Gauteng High Court decision, dismissing FITA’s challenge to the ban on tobacco sales during lockdown.
The minister said: “Cigarettes and tobacco do not, by their nature, fall into the same category as goods which are life-sustaining or necessary for basic functionality. On the contrary, tobacco products kill 115 South Africans daily. It, therefore, cannot be considered a ‘basic good’ akin to electricity and airtime. Simply because a good is addictive [it] does not necessarily follow that it is therefore necessary for human survival or required for basic human functionality.”
The minister contended that there was no reasonable prospect of FITA’s application succeeding. There was also no compelling reason for the appeal to be heard, and that even if FITA adopted a different interpretation of necessary, there was still no reasonable prospect of the court order being overturned.
The minister went on to say: “The test is not whether the prohibition is the best means possible to achieve the objective. It is rather whether the chosen means, being the prohibition, could rationally achieve the objective.”
Source: Times Live, 11 August 2020
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