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Health Secretary Matt Hancock is expected to announce plans this week to scrap Public Health England (PHE) and replace it with a new body to focus on pandemic response, according to a new report by the Telegraph. The new agency will be a merger of the pandemic response work of PHE with NHS Test and Trace called the National Institute for Health Protection, modelled on Germany’s Robert Koch Institute. The change will be “effective” within the next month, but it will take until the spring to formally complete the organisational change of breaking up a large organisation.
A leaked memo seen by the BBC, written by the head of Public Health England Duncan Selbie to staff said the aim of the new national institute for health protection was to boost expertise with "much needed new investment".
The Times also reported that the government plans to ‘scapegoat’ PHE for problems during the pandemic including a leaked email from the PM’s advisor Dominic Cummings that the agency should be scrapped. The agency was accused of failing to rise to the testing challenge and shunning the help of outside labs offering to help.
Senior doctors, hospital bosses and public health experts have criticised the decision in the Guardian. Prof Sir Simon Wessely, the president of the Royal Society of Medicine and a former adviser to the government, said: “PHE employs some of the best, brightest and most hardworking clinicians and experts we have. There are simply not enough of them, which can partly be explained by the steady reduction in funding over the last seven years. Perhaps we do need a more joined-up structure, but we should not scapegoat PHE for the failures in the system in which they are but one cog.”
Source: Telegraph, BBC News, The Times and The Guardian, 15-17 August 2020
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A row has broken out between the government and Manchester council over plans to ban smoking in outdoor seating areas of bars and restaurants.
Pavement licences issued by local authorities have allowed businesses to offer temporary seating outside their premises while maintaining social distancing. While new legislation says the areas should provide separate seating for smokers and non-smokers, Manchester council wants all of them to be no-smoking zones in a bid to cut the number of smokers in the city.
But the move prompted a letter from Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. The cabinet minister in a letter urged the council not to burden businesses with more red tape.
Councillor Rabnawaz Akbar, the executive member for neighbourhoods at Manchester council, has since fired back at the government’s ‘unsubstantiated claims’ in his letter. He wrote: “You are perfectly correct in suggesting that people are entitled to make their own choice on whether they choose to smoke. However, I would ask, are non-smokers not also entitled to be able to breathe clean air?”
The letter says: “Since putting in this policy we have not had any major outcry from premises and there are still many venues across the city where people are free to smoke in designated outdoor areas. Smoking is still the cause of too many deaths in Manchester, and we will make no apologies for doing everything in our power to combat this. This is not targeting smokers but acting responsibly on overwhelming evidence which highlights the detrimental impacts of smoking and secondary smoking.”
Source: Manchester Evening News, 14 August 2020
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Patients across the boroughs of Rochdale, Oldham, Bury and Salford will be offered specialist support to manage tobacco addiction when they are admitted to hospital. A comprehensive tobacco addiction treatment programme called the CURE Project is now fully supported by hospitals run by the Northern Care Alliance (NCA) NHS Group. The rollout began earlier this month at The Royal Oldham, Rochdale Infirmary, Fairfield General Hospital and Salford Royal.
Smoking tobacco is the single biggest cause of preventable death, illness, disability, and social inequality in the United Kingdom. Anyone who is admitted to hospital within the NCA Group, who is identified as a smoker, will be referred to the dedicated Tobacco Addiction team. They will receive support and advice on managing their addiction. They will be offered Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) as well as other medications to manage their cravings during their hospital stay. They will also be signposted to ongoing treatment and support once they leave the hospital.
The CURE project focuses on two key elements; medicalising tobacco addiction to empower all healthcare professionals to commence treatment with all smokers they encounter proactively and the provision of intensive behavioural change support through a team of highly expert stop smoking practitioners.
Dr Pete Turkington, Salford Royal Chief Officer, Medical Director and respiratory consultant, said: “ We have a responsibility to protect our patients, visitors and staff from any danger or risks and there is no safe level of exposure to cigarette smoke. With everyone’s support, we can ensure that all of our hospital sites become completely smoke-free for the benefit of everyone who is using them.”
Source: Rochdale Online, 16 August 2020
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South Africa will lift its coronavirus-linked ban on the sale of alcohol and tobacco products today (17 August 2020), President Cyril Ramaphosa said, announcing the removal of “nearly all restrictions” on economic activities.
The virus-related ban on the purchase of alcohol and cigarettes has been controversial, and no other country has introduced both measures together. It came into effect when South Africa went into a strict nationwide lockdown on 27 March to stem the spread of coronavirus.
Alcohol sales were prohibited to ease pressure on hospitals, allowing doctors in emergency wards to focus on COVID-19 rather than road accidents and other booze-related injuries. Tobacco products were restricted because of the health impacts of smoking, as well as the risk of contamination between people sharing cigarettes. While tobacco sales have been forbidden since the start of lockdown, alcohol purchases were tentatively re-authorised in June and banned again when cases spiked the following month.
The president added that “the further easing of restrictions presents us with the greatest
opportunity... to breathe life into our struggling economy.” South Africa still has the fifth-highest number of coronavirus cases in the world, with 583,653 infections registered to date. At least 11,677 are known to have died from the disease.
Source: Telegraph, 16 August 2020
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Spain announced it was banning smoking in the street when keeping a safe distance is not possible as it stepped up restrictions to stop the spread of coronavirus. Health Minister Salvador Illa unveiled a raft of new measures to be enforced nationwide, including closing restaurants, nightclubs and late-night bars.
The nationwide smoking ban comes after Galicia, and the Canary Islands introduced their bans in outdoor public places last week. The move is supported by research from Spain’s health ministry, who last month found that smoking can spread the virus because people project droplets when they exhale smoke. In addition, the virus could be spread when a person removes their face mask to smoke a cigarette, and by touching their cigarette before bringing it to their mouth. But experts have warned there is not yet enough evidence to say for sure that the disease could be spread through tobacco smoke.
The Health Minister also advised against gatherings of more than ten people and specifically warned young people not to gather outside to drink alcohol. He went on to so: “We cannot afford not to be disciplined; we cannot ignore the virus circulating among us.”
Source: Daily Mail, 14 August 2020
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A new study reveals smoking is strongly linked to lower use of cancer screening services by women and more advanced disease once the cancer is diagnosed. Available evidence suggests that women underuse cancer screening services, so the researchers wanted to find out if lower take up of these services might be linked to active smoking.
The researchers drew on survey responses from 89,058 women who had gone through the menopause and were taking part in the nationally representative Women’s Health Initiative Observational Cohort (WHI-OS) study. Among the study participants, more than half (53%) had never smoked; 41% were ex-smokers; and 6% were active smokers, although nearly half (49.5%) had stopped smoking by the time of the last data collection. Their health and use of cancer screening services were tracked for an average of nearly nine years, during which time 7054 cases of breast cancer, 1600 cases of bowel cancer, and 61 cases of cervical cancer were diagnosed.
Findings from the study reveal current smokers were 45% less likely to get screened for breast cancer, 47% less likely to get screened for cervical cancer, and 29% less likely to get screened for bowel cancer, compared with women who had never smoked. The higher the daily tally of cigarettes smoked among both former and current smokers, the less likely were these women to use cancer screening services. Failure to regularly attend screening appointments was also associated with more advanced disease at diagnosis. Current smokers were nearly three times as likely to be diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer, and more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with late-stage bowel cancer as those who had never smoked.
The researchers advise that doctors should emphasise the importance not only of giving up smoking but also of making use of cancer screening services in this group of high-risk women.
Source: Medical Xpress, 13 August 2020
See also: BMJ - The association between cigarette smoking, cancer screening, and cancer stage: a prospective study of the women’s health initiative observational cohort
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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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