From Action on Smoking and Health <[email protected]>
Subject ASH Daily News for 19 August 2020
Date August 19, 2020 2:43 PM
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** 19 August 2020
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** UK
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** Health expert condemns Matt Hancock’s decision to scrap Public Health England (#1)
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** Many Public Health England responsibilities to return to the NHS (#2)
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** Pow threatens tobacco firms over litter (#3)
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** South East: Southampton council turns up the heat on retailers selling illicit tobacco (#4)
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** UK
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**

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** Matt Hancock, Health Secretary, announced yesterday (18 August) that an overhaul of the public health system is necessary to prepare for “the next threat that lies around the corner.”

One of the government’s scientific advisers, Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), has criticised its decision to abolish Public Health England during the pandemic. Sir Jeremy said that ministers should instead be learning lessons from other countries, planning for long-term public health trends and investing more in healthcare.

Mr Hancock, speaking at the Policy Exchange think tank in Westminster, was warned that efforts to tackle problems such as smoking and obesity, a key part of PHE’s work, could suffer through the reorganisation. He said the government was “passionately committed to health improvement”, adding: “It must be embedded across government, across the NHS, in primary care, pharmacies, and in the work of every local authority.”

Linda Bauld, a professor of public health at Edinburgh University, said: “The overwhelming burden of death and disease in this country is not caused by ‘external threats’, as Matt Hancock put it, such as infections and biological weapons. Instead, it is caused by chronic diseases: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia, and others. A significant proportion of these diseases are preventable, and Public Health England plays a central role in that.” She said there was a “real risk” that the plans would threaten this.

Hazel Cheeseman, the director of policy at Action on Smoking and Health, said: “It is absolutely critical that health improvement and health inequalities agenda is not hollowed out nationally and left to local authorities and the NHS.”

While analysts said there was a logic to combining key organisations involved in the COVID-19 response, Sir Jeremy is not alone in questioning the timing of the announcement, as the health system looks ahead to winter and a possible second wave. Richard Murray, chief executive of the King’s Fund think tank, said: “Public Health England appears to have been found guilty without a trial. It is unclear what problem [the] government are hoping to solve by carving up PHE and redistributing its responsibilities. Undoubtedly, there are questions to be answered about England’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, but the middle of a pandemic is not the time to dismantle England’s public health agency.”

Source: The Times, 19 August 2020
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** There is a ‘central working hypothesis’ that many of the functions of Public Health England (PHE) will return to the NHS next year, according to very senior sources close to the proposed changes. Health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced the abolition of the seven-year old PHE yesterday and said most of its health protection work would be taken on by the new National Institute for Health Protection (NIHP).

The creation of PHE in 2013 saw many functions move across from the NHS to the new agency. PHE’s health improvement work includes substance misuse treatment, health promotion and screening programmes, as well a wide range of data collection, research, and other responsibilities. It has worked increasingly closely with local authorities since local public health directors became council employees.

One senior government source said: “There is no clear destination [for the remaining PHE functions], but there is a central working hypothesis that many will become the responsibility of the NHS again.” The source stressed there was considerable debate about which functions are made the responsibility of NHS England at a national level and which are shared more locally between developing “integrated care systems” and local government. The desire, they claimed, was to use the re-organisation to encourage the NHS to take greater responsibility for health inequalities.

There appears to be little appetite for creating a new standalone public health agency, however, the sources said the consultation would “take months” and that any formal changes in responsibilities were not likely to take place until April 2021 at the earliest.

The need to realign NHS and public health functions was stressed in the January 2019 NHS Long Term Plan, Sir Mike Richards’ review of screening programmes, as well as the recommendations for new legislation made by NHS England to the government, which the government promised to enact. However, the timing of the announcement was not welcomed, with one senior NHS leader saying: “It should not have been done in this way, or at this time.”

Source: Health Service Journal, 18 August 2020
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** Environment Minister Rebecca Pow has threatened the tobacco industry with strict action unless it improves its performance on litter.

In similar letters sent to the Tobacco Manufacturers Association and firms Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco International (JTI), Pow said: “Smoking-related litter is a particularly persistent and widespread problem, and I had hoped to see the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association and the companies it represents work more pro-actively to deliver on the commitment it gave during the 2015 select committee inquiry on litter and fly-tipping.”

Pow said she was prepared to talk with the tobacco industry, Keep Britain Tidy and other but “if we cannot progress this discussion at this roundtable, we will have to reflect on what steps the government can take going forward to ensure that the tobacco industry takes increasing responsibility for the litter that its products create.”

Pow warned: “The powers we are seeking in the Environment Bill would allow us to mandate an Environmental Permitting Regulations scheme for tobacco filters. Such a scheme could go beyond what Keep Britain Tidy has proposed to the industry as a voluntary approach.”

Keep Britain Tidy in 2018 launched a campaign called Bin The Butt to try to deter smokers from discarding cigarette ends where they would eventually enter the oceans. It said dropped butts were the most common form of littering, and 39% smokers - equivalent to 3.6 million people admitted to having thrown a cigarette butt down a drain within the past month.

Source: MRW, 18 August 2020

Editorial note

The UK is a party to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, and there is a legal obligation under Article 5.3 of the Convention that “in setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, Parties shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law.”
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**
The Guidance which sits alongside the article states that: “Parties should not accept, support or endorse partnerships and non-binding or non-enforceable agreements as well as any voluntary arrangement with the tobacco industry or any entity or person working to further its interests.”
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** Officers from Southampton City Council have seized more than 50,000 illegal cigarettes valued at more than £30,000 and 11kg of hand-rolling tobacco worth over £5,000 following an operation at five retail premises in the city.

The council revealed that some of the seized products were smuggled into the country illegally, while others were counterfeit.

Councillor Lorna Fielker, a cabinet member for health and adult care, said: “It’s also never too late to quit, even if you have smoked for many years. Stopping smoking brings many health benefits and reduces your risks of developing lung disease – for tips, tools and support to stop, visit the Today is the Day website.”

Source: Talking Retail, 14 August 2020

See also: Today is the day ([link removed] )
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For more information call 020 7404 0242, email [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or visit www.ash.org.uk

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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