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A new report from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) and Cancer Research UK revealed that more than three-quarters (76%) of local authorities were providing some form of dedicated specialist service for smokers last year, compared to 69% in 2019.
But the report also reveals that long term underfunding and forecast growth in demand for services due to new NHS programmes is placing pressure on services and has increased the urgency to improve local authority public health funding to meet these demands and tackle inequalities in the wake of the pandemic. Local authorities adapted quickly to the challenges posed by the pandemic to make sure services were available for smokers. For example, by delivering these traditionally face-to-face services remotely, reaching out to vulnerable homeless populations being bought into hotels and finding new ways to support access to medications.
However, 36% reported that the emergency context had created positive opportunities for services to be delivered differently and reach more people. A further 34% said that the pandemic had compromised their ability to provide support. The councils most likely to report negative impacts were those delivering their services through NHS partners in general practice and primary care, settings which were overwhelmed with the frontline pandemic response. Among those delivering through the NHS, 88% reported negative impacts compared to 25% of local councils with separate dedicated services.
The report recommends that the government implement the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health recommendations necessary to secure a smokefree country by 2030, including a charge on tobacco companies to fund services. It also suggests that Local Government embed addressing smoking in their covid recovery plans as part of addressing inequalities and that new Integrated Care Boards collaborate with Local Government to ensure joined up plans across local government and the NHS to tackle smoking and maximise the opportunity to support more smokers to stop.
Malcolm Clark, Senior Policy Manager at Cancer Research UK, said: “Smoking is a leading cause of health inequalities, so it’s great to see local authorities engaging with people who have the highest rates of smoking. However, this report also shows the harmful impact of years of funding cuts to public health budgets. To close the inequality gap, everyone who smokes must have access to effective specialist support to help them stop. Increased and sustainable funding for local tobacco control is vital for this to happen.”
Source: Government Business, 24 January 2022
See also: Reaching Out: Tobacco control and stop smoking services in local authorities in England, 2021
ASH Press Release - Local council support for smokers better than pre-pandemic – but chronic funding pressures remain
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Increasingly constrained public health budgets are calling into question the UK’s ambitious goal of reducing smoking levels to one in 20 people by 2030 – a full ten years ahead of comparable EU targets. The public health funds parcelled out to local authorities have been cut across the board, but smoking cessation and tobacco control measures have seen the sharpest cuts of any health services, losing 33% of their funding since 2016. These curbs have raised fears that the UK will falter in its efforts to curtail an addiction that contributes to about 78,000 deaths a year across the nation and costs the UK economy more than £19 billion, including social care costs and lost productivity for businesses.
The funding curbs are particularly frustrating given the fact that until now, the UK government has crafted a progressive tobacco policy that has driven smoking rates down considerably, falling from 27% in 2000 to 14.1% today.
Delaying or diminishing anti-smoking programmes merely reinforces existing societal inequities. Recent research by Cancer Research UK shows that smokers from the lowest income groups have double the cancer rates of those from the most affluent groups. That overall smoking rates are in decline shouldn’t blind us to the fact that the benefits of quitting are far from evenly distributed; poorer people, people with mental health problems and people who use drugs are the most likely to start smoking in the first place – and the least likely to get the support they need to quit smoking.
With the UK government having committed to a ‘Smokefree 2030’ that sets the bar at lower than 5% smoking prevalence, public health providers need even greater access to resources. By providing local authorities with the funds necessary to pursue the strategies that are already working so well, including applying a well-crafted regulatory approach and increasing public awareness of reduced-risk nicotine products like patches and e-cigarettes, the UK could finally turn the dream of a smokefree society into a tangible reality.
Source: London Love Business, 24 January 2022
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Three former gambling insiders are lobbying MPs and investors to begin treating the harm caused by betting like they did tobacco.
Fintan Drury, a former chairman of Paddy Power, said that gambling giants were being allowed to “pursue those who are most vulnerable.” Drury, who left the industry more than a decade ago, warned that the sector could not be trusted to police itself and that there were parallels with the way big tobacco and fossil fuel companies had behaved. He said: “The tobacco industry, again for decades, was [resisting] the idea that their product was the primary cause of lung cancer. There is a history of businesses wanting to continue to grow and not wanting to hear the potential negative consequences of the business that they’re in.”
Drury has set up Stop Gambling Harm, a new organisation aimed at curtailing the most damaging practices in the sector, along with two others, Stewart Kenny, a Paddy Power co-founder and former chief executive, and Ian Armitage, a director of the company’s first institutional backer. The trio are calling for more restrictions on gambling for the under-25s, strict rules on sports advertising, compulsory deposit limits and the mandatory separation of sports betting and casino apps. They have been meeting MPs on both sides of the Commons to push for changes in the law. Government proposals to overhaul legislation, promised in the 2019 election, were expected last year but have not materialised.
The Labour MP Carolyn Harris, who chairs a parliamentary group on gambling-related harm, and has spoken to the men, said: “We only won on the tobacco argument when they started talking about it being a public health issue. Problem gambling is mental health and a public health issue.”
The men behind Stop Gambling Harm say they have long since cut ties, shares or income from the gambling industry.
Source: The Times, 23 January 2022
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