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** 14 December 2021
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** UK
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** Text messages helping mums-to-be quit for good (#1)
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** Council chiefs welcome £300m social care funding (#2)
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** Parliamentary Activity
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** Health and Care Bill - HL Bill 71 Amendments (#4)
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** UK
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** One in 10 women is still smoking during their pregnancy, so researchers at East Anglia University (UEA) and the University of Cambridge have developed a new text service called MiQuit that provides free support, sending helpful advice and information directly to their phones. It is currently being piloted in Norfolk, with hopes of taking it nationwide.
The support is tailored to each mum and their lifestyle, ensuring everyone who signs up gets the right help. It is low cost, convenient and anonymous. The service is fully automated and user-initiated, so women can start using it without any health professional involvement.
MiQuit designer Dr Felix Naughton from UEA’s School of Health Sciences said: “Around 11% of UK women smoke throughout pregnancy and rates rise considerably with increasing social deprivation – exacerbating health inequalities.” Stopping smoking reduces the risk of stillbirth and complications during pregnancy and birth, so mums have a healthier pregnancy and a stronger baby. And it helps immediately.
Dr Naughton said: “Their baby is less likely to be born too early and have to face the breathing, feeding and health problems that often go with being premature, or be born with a low birth weight which can cause problems during and after labour. […] Stopping smoking during pregnancy will also help a baby later in life. Children whose parents smoke are more likely to suffer from asthma and other serious illnesses that may need hospital treatment.”
Councillor Bill Borrett, Norfolk County Council’s Cabinet Member for Public Health, says: “The results of this pilot being run in Norfolk may help the service be taken up across the country, helping many more people live healthier and happier lives.”
Source: Mirror, 13 December 2021
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** Local authority leaders have described a new support package to protect the care sector this winter as “positive” but warned that long-term investment was needed to make social care sustainable. On Friday (10 December), the Government announced a package of new measures to protect the social care sector from COVID-19. This package includes the expansion of specialist vaccination teams and a £300 million fund to help recruit and reward the social care workforce.
Councillor David Fothergill, chairman of the Local Government Association’s (LGA) Community Wellbeing Board, welcomed the funding but called for long-term investment in the adult social care sector.
He said: “The additional funding is positive, and it is important that it is allocated quickly and be easily accessible so that it can make an immediate impact this winter. Moving forward, adult social care services continue to need significant and sustainable long-term investment – as opposed to short-term cash injections – to make permanent improvements so that people are supported to live the life they want to lead.”
Source: Local Gov, 13 December 2021
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** Parliamentary Activity
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** Peers have tabled several tobacco amendments to the Health and Care Bill, ahead of Committee stage in the House of Lords. The amendments are based on recommendations from the latest APPG on Smoking and Health report.
Age of sale for tobacco
Member’s explanatory statement: This new Clause would require the Secretary of State to consult on raising the age of sale for tobacco products to 21 and report to Parliament.
Supported by:
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
Lord Young of Cookham
Baroness Northover
Sale and distribution of nicotine products to children under the age of 18 years
Member’s explanatory statement:
This new Clause would require the Secretary of State to prohibit the free distribution or sale of any consumer nicotine product to anyone under 18, while allowing the sale or distribution of nicotine replacement therapy licensed for use by under-18s.
Supported by:
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
Lord Young of Cookham
Consultation on statutory scheme
Member’s explanatory statement:
This new Clause, along with others, would require the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to carry out a consultation about a statutory scheme for the regulation of prices and profits of tobacco manufacturers and importers. Funds raised by the scheme would be used to pay for the cost of tobacco control measures to deliver the Government’s ultimatum for industry to make smoked tobacco obsolete by 2030 and for England to be smoke-free with smoking rates 5% or below.
Supported by:
Lord Young of Cookham
Health warnings on cigarettes and cigarette papers
Member’s explanatory statement:
This new Clause would require the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring health warnings to be printed on all individual cigarettes and rolling papers.
Supported by:
Lord Rennard
Lord Young of Cookham
Cigarette pack inserts
Member’s explanatory statement: This new Clause would require the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring leaflets containing health information and information about smoking cessation services to be inserted inside cigarette packaging.
Flavoured tobacco products
Member’s explanatory statement:
This new Clause would require the Secretary of State to prohibit any flavouring in all smoking tobacco and smoking tobacco accessories.
Packaging and labelling of nicotine products
Member’s explanatory statement: This new Clause would give powers to the Secretary of State to prohibit branding on e-cigarette packaging which is appealing to children.
Supported by:
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
Lord Young of Cookham
Source: Hansard, 13 December 2021
See also: APPG Report - Delivering a Smokefree 2030: The All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health recommendations for the Tobacco Control Plan 2021 ([link removed])
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