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** 09 August 2021
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** UK
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** Tobacco giant Philip Morris raises bid for respiratory drugmaker (#1)
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** LGBT campaigners accuse WHO of ignoring science (#2)
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** The next battle for the NHS: Sajid Javid v Rishi Sunak (#3)
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** Public health should be a factor in licensing decisions, says LGA (#4)
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** Drug-laced sweets bought on social media and sold in schools see cannabis poisonings triple (#5)
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** Parliamentary Activity
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** Parliamentary question (#6)
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** UK
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**

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** Tobacco giant Philip Morris has raised its bid to buy respiratory drugmaker Vectura to more than £1 billion. Vectura makes inhaled medicines and devices to treat respiratory illnesses such as asthma and counts Novartis and GSK among its customers. The Marlboro cigarette maker increased its offer to £1.65 ($2.29) per share after US private equity firm Carlyle offered £958 million ($1.3 billion) on Friday (6 August).

Vectura has not yet responded to requests for comment on the new bid. It previously said it was backing Carlyle’s offer and withdrawing its recommendation for Philip Morris’ earlier bid. Vectura said on Friday that it believed it could better position under Carlyle’s ownership, noting the “reported uncertainties relating to the impact on Vectura’s wider stakeholders arising as a result of the possibility of the company being owned by PMI (Philip Morris).”

The latest offer represents a premium of 10p per share to the rival offer of £1.55 a share by Carlyle Group. The fresh bid comes after Philip Morris said it could stop selling cigarettes in the UK in 10 years, focusing on alternatives, such as heated tobacco.

The firm indicated it would welcome a government ban on cigarettes and said “strong regulation” was needed to “help solve the problem of cigarette smoking once and for all.” However, health charity ASH said it was hard to take such claims seriously from the firm responsible for selling over a tenth of cigarettes globally.

Source: BBC News, 8 August 2021

See also: The Guardian - Carlyle ups bid for inhaler firm Vectura, trumping tobacco giant Philip Morris ([link removed])
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** The World Health Organization (WHO) has been accused of “ignoring science” over its stance on reducing smoking within the LGBT community. Smoking rates are significantly higher among LGBT people (23%) than heterosexual people (15%) - in the UK. This disparity has led charity the LGBT Foundation to call on the WHO to promote vaping to stop smoking.

The upcoming COP9 in November aims to tackle international tobacco use - which kills more than eight million people globally each year. LGBT Foundation has applied to speak at the summit. But it says that the WHO has refused to grant it access and in doing so has “isolated” the LGBT community.

LGBT Foundation smoking history programme coordinator Tom Chew said: “Having representation at WHO’s convention on tobacco control is necessary and important for the progression of inclusive smoke-free strategies. By not considering community input or having a diverse representation of those who use smoking cessation services or those who are disproportionately affected by smoking at such talks can inhibit people’s attempts to quit successfully. It can also isolate certain demographics from the conversation.”

WHO has been criticised for “fundamentally misunderstanding” how to stop people smoking tobacco, including its attacks on vaping, a known effective cessation aid.. Cancer Research UK recommends it as an effective quitting tool while ASH says, “e-cigarettes have proved to be an important gateway out of smoking, not into it”. Vaping has also been credited with saving millions of lives. In the UK, 60,000 smokers switch to e-cigarettes each year, reducing the chances of developing a tobacco-related illness.

Source: Express, 8 August 2021
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** As NHS leaders face unavoidable extra costs running into many billions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, chancellor Rishi Sunak and the Treasury are reportedly trying to bring state spending unleashed to tackle various aspects of the pandemic back under control. The 3.4% annual increase in NHS budgets agreed to in 2018 has been eaten up by the pandemic and with the autumn budget looming, those in the health service fear securing extra funding will be even more difficult than before.

“There’s [a] real danger of a very large gap between the Treasury and the NHS,” says Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers. “The Treasury [is] insisting that they have to regain control of the public finances and get back to the May settlement as quickly as possible – the NHS is saying that the demands on the service have changed dramatically, and they can’t provide the right quality of patient care in a world of COVID-19 unless those pressures are recognised. It’s difficult to see how those two views get reconciled.”

Analysis from health thinktank, the Nuffield Trust, shows that NHS trusts in England are on course to spend almost £5 billion more in the next financial year than was anticipated when May set the NHS funding levels in 2018. These higher spending pressures were calculated after taking out spending specific to the coronavirus pandemic. Sally Gainsbury, Nuffield Trust’s senior policy analyst, said: “It is crucial that they are recognised in the forthcoming spending review. The NHS cannot expect the full gap to be wiped out by extra money, but the Treasury needs to be realistic about where the health service is starting from.”

Experts believe the Treasury is trying to ensure the NHS pays for some extra costs out of its existing budgets. Anita Charlesworth, a former Treasury official who is now a leading health economist at the Health Foundation think tank said “In the spending review, the Treasury needs to decide how far it tries to hold the NHS to this pre-existing settlement and set a similar rate of NHS funding growth for the election year 2024-25. The current signs are that the Treasury will push hard for at least some of the long-term costs of Covid and the waiting times backlog to be absorbed within current spending plans. But as the Office for Budget Responsibility has identified, the pandemic leaves significant unfunded legacy costs which could total around £7 billion a year.”

The main hope for health officials is that political interest kicks in. The prospect of an election in 2024 at the latest may be the main advantage for those pushing for a more generous settlement.

Source: The Guardian, 8 August 2021
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** The Local Government Association (LGA) says councils should be allowed to consider the public health impact of future licensing decisions, claiming this would make the country better prepared for future pandemics. Councils can currently only consider four issues when deciding whether to grant licences: the prevention of crime and disorder, public safety; prevention of public nuisance; and protection of children from harm. The LGA is calling for a public health objective to be added to the Licensing Act, which would legally require businesses to think about public health issues and allow councils to take action to support this.

Currently, local health bodies can submit a view on licensing decisions, but evidence must relate to one of the existing licensing objectives - such as linking hospital data to violent crime incidents. Other organisations concerned with public health are also understood to have raised the need to update the Licensing Act with the Home Office. Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty is said to support the idea. The LGA also says councils need greater access to NHS data, including hospital admissions and ambulance call-out details, to assist decision making.

Councillor Neil Caliskan, Chair of the LGA’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board, said that councils “do not want powers to refuse every application. But being able to consider the public health impact of new licensed premises would allow them to take a more balanced view in line with their other priorities such as creating vibrant and safe town centres and protecting people from harm.”

Source: LGC, 6 August 2021
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** The number of children treated for cannabis poisoning has almost tripled since 2012, with hundreds of young children being admitted to A&E with heart palpitations, anxiety attacks, paranoia and hallucinations.

Official stats for England and Wales show 345 children were admitted to hospital with cannabis poisoning in 2019-20 – compared to 130 in 2012/13. And 868 young people went to hospital for mental health problems triggered by drugs in 2019/20 – more than double the 344 who did 10 years earlier.

Dealers offer edible cannabis products called Harribo, Werther’s OG and Mary Milk, playing on the names of traditional sweet brands. Last month West Yorkshire Police raided two industrial premises in Wakefield and found huge numbers of the sweets being made. Four people have been arrested.

Jess Clayton, West Yorkshire Police’s drugs coordinator, said: “Cannabis edibles appear to be imported, but they are also being made by individuals across the UK who are creating their own makeshift labs and packaging. Children are ordering edibles through social media apps, receiving them in the post, and through friends. There does seem to be an increasing trend in the use of cannabis edibles over the last year, and the THC [the psychoactive compound which sparks a feeling of being high] within them has been found to be very high.”

Source: Mirror, 7 August 2021
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** Parliamentary Activity
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**

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** PQ: Maternity Services

Asked by Marsha De Cordova, Battersea

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that (a) the transition to a midwifery-led Continuity of Carer model is adequately resourced and (b) women who are pregnant after the death of a baby are prioritised for access to that model.

Answered by Nadine Dorries, Minister of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety

NHS England and NHS Improvement have committed to the rollout of Midwifery Continuity of Carer, so that it becomes the default model of care for women using maternity services across England by March 2023. NHS England and NHS Improvement have provided Local Maternity Systems with £90.05 million from 2018 to 2021 to fulfil transformational objectives, including implementing Continuity of Carer models. An additional £96 million was announced earlier this year in response to the emerging findings from the Ockenden Report, the majority of which will be invested in additional midwives and obstetric capacity.

Upcoming NHS England and NHS Improvement guidance will include advice on the implementation of maternal medicine-focused Continuity of Carer teams, which could be used to accommodate women deemed higher risk due to previous loss, whilst still offering continuity of the midwife caring for them.

Source: Hansard, 5 August 2021
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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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