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** 17 March 2021
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** UK
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** Vaping firms want advert rules relaxed (#1)
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** Radical shake-up of civil service comms to be in place by April 2022 (#2)
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** NHS staff should get 5% payrise next year, says thinktank (#3)
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** International
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** US: Study finds healthy living cuts your odds for the two leading killers (#4)
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** UK
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** The UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA), whose members include tobacco companies, issued a report on Monday 15th March 2021 calling on the government to relax regulations on the industry. The report, which has been issued as part of a government consultation on the future of the vaping industry, recommends an easing of restrictions covering advertising, packaging, and product sizes.
The proposals to the Department of Health and Social Care include greater advertising freedoms starting with a government-led communications campaign explaining the potential harm reduction of switching from smoking to vaping and the introduction of switching messages on products. These messages should be pre-approved by the government, public health experts and industry, it said.
Other recommendations include the regulation of e-cigarette branding to explicitly ban cartoons and iconography that could appeal to young people as well as the restriction of flavour names that could disproportionately appeal to underage users. The association also wants to increase e-cigarette tank capacity and increase nicotine bottle sizes, which it says will reduce plastic waste and increase convenience for the consumer “without increasing the risk profile”.
Source: The Times, 16 March 2021
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** A leaked memo has revealed that Downing Street has ordered that a radical shake-up to slim down and centralise civil service communications teams as part of a major Whitehall overhaul should be in place by April 2022. Plans could include ordering cuts to staff at arms-length bodies (ALBs) that scrutinise government.
Staff were told that voluntary redundancies could be considered, despite the memo acknowledging staff were “exhausted and feeling the impact of being away from your friends, families and colleagues”.
Questions have been raised about the extent to which the overhaul will affect communications staff at ALBs like regulators such as Ofcom or the Office for National Statistics, some of which have roles scrutinising government. Around 60% of government communications staff work in ALBs, the strategy says. Though it suggests those staff will not be brought under the centralised system, it warned there are still aims to make cuts to the workforce.
The move will also be a major overhaul of civil service press offices, including social media teams and designers who will be working for a central government employer rather than their individual department.
Amy Leversidge, assistant general secretary of civil service union the FDA, said the announcement would “set hares running for staff who will be concerned that this crosses a line and that ALBs should be able to determine the size of their teams based on what is right for them, based on their experience, expertise and understanding of the complexities of their areas”.
Source: The Guardian, 16 March 2021
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** The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has said that NHS staff should get a 5% payrise next year as part of a £12bn boost to health and social care to help them ‘’build back better’’ after the COVID-19 pandemic. The IPPR says the money would help the NHS to tackle understaffing, overcome widespread disruption to non-COVID-19 care and start to again improve outcomes from diseases such as cancer.
The IPPR’s calls follow calls from Unison and the Royal College of Nursing, amongst other groups, for the government to increase its proposed pay rise. The IPPR states that giving all NHS workers except consultants and senior managers a 5% rise would cost £1.4bn and would help to address the serious problems of recruitment and retention that have left the NHS short of around 85,000 personnel.
It argues that the NHS needs £6bn more a year over and above existing plans, of which £2.2bn for each of the next five years would help it restart the diagnostic and treatment services suspended when hospitals had to focus on COVID-19 care, such as cancer screening and GP appointments.
It also urges ministers to spend £1bn subsidising the wages of social care workers, to help address staffing problems in care homes and at-home personal care services and recommends making personal care for over-65s free in England, as it is in Scotland, which would cost £5bn. Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock should co-chair a new cabinet committee on public health to ensure that action is taken to tackle stark health inequalities between rich and poor, it adds.
In a poll of 172 senior NHS and local council leaders by Savanta ComRes for the report, 33% said post-Brexit migration rules needed to be loosened to allow more health and care staff to work in the UK while 31% identified more flexible working as a key way of stopping staff from quitting.
Source: The Guardian, 16 March 2021
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** International
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** A large new study has confirmed that the same healthy lifestyle habits that protect the heart can also curb the risk of a range of cancers.
The study, published in the journal JACC: CardioOncology on March 16th 2021, included over 20,000 US adults who were 50 years old on average when the study began. It looked at how well these adults were adhering to the American Heart Association’s ‘’Life’s Simple 7’’ list which recommends people to never smoke or quit if they do, amongst other things.
Researchers gave each participant up to 2 points per goal, depending on how well they were doing with it. In the end, people who scored high on the heart-health scale were also less likely to develop cancer over the next 15 years: For each point they received, their risk of a future cancer declined by 5%.
The story was different for people who had major risk factors for heart disease at the study's start—including high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and smoking. Those deemed to be at high risk of a heart attack in the next 10 years were over three times more likely to develop cancer compared to people with a low heart attack risk.
The study found that the modifiable risk factor that made the biggest difference in overall cancer risk was smoking. That, researchers said, underscores the importance of helping smokers quit—both for cancer prevention and the sake of their hearts.
Source: Medical Xpress, 16 March 2021
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