From Action on Smoking and Health <[email protected]>
Subject ASH Daily News for 14 October 2021
Date October 14, 2021 12:09 PM
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** 14 October 2021
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** UK
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** England’s GPs to get £250 million boosts if they see more patients face-to-face (#1)
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** The £180 million cost of Sunderland’s smoking and drinking problems (#2)
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** Hampshire County Council to save on public health services (#3)
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** Northern Ireland: Councillor Duffy welcomes plan to ban smoking in cars (#4)
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** International
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** Mexico: Deputy health minister proposes ban on all tobacco marketing (#5)
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** Henrietta Lacks: Mother of modern medicine honoured (#6)
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** UK
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**
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** GPs in England will be handed £250 million to improve their services, but only if they increase the number of patients being seen face-to-face under a new government and NHS action plan.

Under the “blueprint,” GP practices in England will be able to share in a new £250 million “winter access fund” to hire more staff, such as locum GPs, physiotherapists and podiatrists. However, the money will be conditional on increasing the number of patients who get an in-person appointment. Those who fail to expand in-person treatment will be “offered support to improve” under a more rigorous scrutiny regime of how they operate.

NHS England made clear that “every GP practice must seek patients’ input and respect preferences for face-to-face care unless there are good clinical reasons to the contrary.” Exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 will be the most common clinical justification for refusing to see a patient in person, with most others, offered a physical interaction, NHS sources said.

The government is also set to scrap the 2-metre social distancing rule in GP surgeries to pave the way for more patients to come in, bringing them into what is already the policy operated by hospitals. The move will be outlined in new guidance on infection control procedures drawn up by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which will be published imminently.

The British Medical Association (BMA) has warned that the new rules would make it harder rather than easier for patients to get appointments.

Source: The Guardian, 14 October 2021

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** See also: BBC - GPs told to see more patients in person as A&E waits worsen ([link removed])
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** Councillors have backed plans to help tackle tobacco and alcohol issues, costing Sunderland an estimated £180 million a year.

Sunderland City Council Cabinet this week signed off on authorising officers to take “all necessary steps” to participate in the extension of the existing regional tobacco control and alcohol de-normalisation programme. Known as Fresh and Balance, it has run since April 2016, with Durham County Council lead commissioner on behalf of seven councils in the North East, and the extension would see it last until 30 September 2024.

Sunderland Councillor Kelly Chequer, the cabinet member for Healthy City, who presented the report, said the “economic burden of smoking in Sunderland is approximately £70.8 million per year. Irresponsible use of alcohol is estimated to cost the city around £112 million per year, however, the programme is helping make progress.”

Councillor Chequer continued by saying: “Significant progress has been made over the past decade in reducing overall smoking prevalence and embedding policies and campaigns to reduce the harms of alcohol. […] As Sunderland continues to experience significant problems with tobacco and alcohol-related harms, it remains imperative to ensure that evidence-based approaches such as those undertaken by Fresh and Balance are sustained.”

She added both issues contribute “significantly to health inequalities in Sunderland” and across the North East.

Source: Sunderland Echo, 13 October 2021
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** Hampshire County Council held a public consultation this summer after it announced health services would be slashed. It was feared that jobs would be lost and clinics closed to lower the public health budget. But new plans show substance misuse and sexual services are at the forefront of county chiefs’ plans to save around £236,000 and will be reviewed by a committee on October 19.

In total, it was anticipated that the county council’s public health function would need to contribute some £6.8million of savings in 2021/22 towards the local authority’s overall budget shortfall. Just over £3.1million of savings have already been achieved through a combination of internal and external service transformation.

Following feedback from the consultation and subsequent discussions, it has been concluded that no further savings towards the £6.8million target are required from public health. Instead, the remaining saving requirement of £3.7million can be achieved through additional savings made within adult social care. The funding from the £236,000 of savings proposed to proceed will be reinvested into priority areas to help improve the public’s health.

Source: Hampshire Chronicle, 13 October 2021
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** Sinn Féin Councillor Sandra Duffy has welcomed plans from the health minister to prohibit smoking in cars with more than one passenger.

Northern Ireland’s health minister Robin Swann outlined plans he would be working to prevent people from smoking in cars in which children were present and prevent the sale of nicotine inhaling products to those under 18.

Councillor Sandra Duffy says, “this ban will help protect people, particularly children and young people, from the damaging impact of second-hand smoking. Breathing in second-hand smoke has a damaging impact on people’s health.”

In England and Wales, it became illegal in 2015 to smoke in a vehicle with someone under 18 and is punishable by a £50 fine. Robin Swann wants to prioritise plans to change the law in Northern Ireland to match that of the UK.

Source: Derry Journal, 13 October 2021
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** International
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** Deputy Health Minister of prevention and health promotion Hugo López-Gatell proposed an outright ban on tobacco advertising on Wednesday (13 October) during a Senate forum on smoking addiction. Hugo López-Gatell said political lobbying by tobacco companies is part of the problem and that guarding against conflicts of interest in political circles is part of the solution.

The deputy health minister said: “It is not only undesirable but also illegal in the strict sense that the tobacco industry can approach public officials of any of the powers of the union to have a dialogue or proposal, let alone to lobby their products. That lobbying in many cases is surreptitious, hidden and with various intermediaries.”

Source: Mexico News Daily, 13 October 2021
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**

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** The World Health Organization (WHO) has honoured an African-American woman whose cells have led to crucial medical breakthroughs. Henrietta Lacks, a former tobacco farmer, died aged 31 in 1951 of cervical cancer and samples of her cells were collected by doctors without her or her family’s knowledge.

They were the first living human cells to multiply outside the human body. They have been used in research that led to the polio vaccine, gene mapping and IVF treatment. The HeLa cells - a name derived from the first two letters of Henrietta Lacks’ first and last names - were also used in the vaccine against cervical cancer, the same disease which killed Lacks. These and other advances have resulted in Henrietta Lacks being named the “mother” of modern medicine.

Source: BBC News, 14 October 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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