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** 25 March 2022
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** UK
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** NHS announces £127m maternity boost for patients and families (#1)
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** Opinion: The UK’s poorest people have been utterly abandoned by this ideological chancellor (#2)
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** International
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** Specific lung cancer screening and treatment policies urgently needed to address international disparities in survival (#3)
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** Philip Morris to exit Russia (#4)
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** Parliamentary Activity
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** Parliamentary Questions (#5)
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** Links of the Week
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** Bob Blackman on Smoke-Free 2030 (#6)
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** UK
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** NHS announces £127m maternity boost for patients and families
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** The NHS in England has today announced a £127 million funding boost for maternity services across England that will help ensure safer and more personalised care for women and their babies.

More than £50 million will be provided to Trusts across the country over the next two years to boost staffing numbers in maternity and neonatal services. Around £34 million will also be invested in local maternity systems, in culture and leadership development programmes and in supporting staff retention roles. In addition, £45 million of capital funding will be available to hospitals over the next three years to increase the number neonatal cots across England, so that babies will receive the best quality care, in the most appropriate clinical setting.

Investment to bolster the maternity workforce in England will support delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan’s ambition of making England the safest place in the world to give birth, while also accelerating action to halve stillbirths, maternal mortality, neonatal mortality and serious brain injury by 2025.
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** Source: NHS News, 24 March 2022
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** Opinion: The UK’s poorest people have been utterly abandoned by this ideological chancellor
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**
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** Paul Kissack, chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, shares his opinion on Rishi Sunak’s Spring Statement announced on Wednesday, stating, “I can’t recall a worse fiscal event than Wednesday’s spring statement.”

Kissack argues that the “fiscally incoherent” changes to national insurance, income tax, and benefit cuts, will hit the poorest of our society the hardest, amidst what is already the “greatest threat to living standards for generations”, whilst “protect[ing] the incomes of those who often don’t [work]”, particularly landlords and pensioners. Kissack noted that the “rising cost of essentials affects us all, but not equally. People on the lowest incomes are at greatest risk, because unavoidable spending on energy and food takes up a higher proportion of their budget than any other group. Already they have nothing to cut back on.”

Kissack notes the real terms cut to benefits alone means “600,000 more people will be pulled into poverty ([link removed].) […] Around a quarter of them are children.” He concludes by highlighting The Trussell Trust’s response to the Spring Statement, which opens with, “Today the Chancellor has failed to create any security for people on the lowest incomes by failing to bring benefits payments in line with the true cost of living in the Spring Statement”.

Source: The Guardian, 25 March 2022

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** See also: The Trussell Trust - The Trussell Trust responds to the Spring Statement ([link removed])
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Read Article ([link removed] )


** International
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** Specific lung cancer screening and treatment policies urgently needed to address international disparities in survival
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**
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** The International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership (ICBP), has highlighted international disparities in management and outcomes of patients with lung cancer in high-income countries. The findings were presented at the European Lung Cancer Congress (ELCC) alongside a roadmap of key actions that should be taken to standardise practices, help enable earlier diagnosis and offer equitable access to care.

The ICBP is a group of clinicians, policymakers, researchers and data experts, who aim to measure and understand international variation in cancer incidence and outcomes. The ICBP research team, based at Cancer Research UK, interviewed 9 key stakeholders from across the globe to develop a roadmap for action which could improve lung cancer care and disparities in international practice. The roadmap consists of five calls to action and 13 good practice points, which were reached by complete consensus with the research participants.

One of the researchers, Charlotte Lynch from Cancer Research UK, notes that the final call to action developed by the group was to "recognise improvements in lung cancer care and outcomes as a priority in cancer policy." She said "Considering the disease's persistently low survival even in high-income countries, it is time to focus on lung-cancer specific policies that will facilitate collaboration, drive service development and improve outcomes to the same extent as we have seen with other common cancers."

Source: Medical Xpress, 24 March 2022
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Read Article ([link removed] )


** Philip Morris to exit Russia
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**
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** Tobacco giant Philip Morris has said it's planning to withdraw from Russia, joining dozens of multinational companies cutting ties with Moscow following the invasion of Ukraine. The maker of Marlboro cigarettes said it is looking at ways to exit in an orderly fashion, adding it had become too complex to do business in the country.

Russia generated 6% of Philip Morris’ total revenue last year and is the company's fourth-largest cigarette market by volume. Russia is also an important region for growth in its IQOS heated tobacco product.

Rivals British American Tobacco and Imperial Brands, who have already announced their departure from Russia, have said they plan to transfer their local businesses to Russian partners.

Source: The Telegraph, 24 March 2022
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Read Article ([link removed] )


** Parliamentary Activity
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** Parliamentary Questions

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** Asked by Lord Jones, Liberal Democrat, Cheltenham

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the study in the European Journal of Epidemiology The Burden of Mortality from smoking: comparing Sweden with other countries in the European Union, published in 2004, which found a lower mortality rate in Sweden following a switch from smoking to snus; and whether they will explain why snus is banned in the UK.

Answered by Lord Kamall, Under Secretary of State (Minister for Technology, Innovation and Life Sciences)

The Department does not hold data showing the carcinogen levels of snus or other smokeless tobacco products.

The Department is exploring a range of regulatory options as part of the development of the new Tobacco Control Plan. This includes further regulation on the most harmful tobacco products such as those smokeless tobacco products currently available in the UK.

No assessment has been made of the study in the European Journal of Epidemiology.

Snus is banned in the UK and we have no plans to introduce additional tobacco products to the UK market. Alternative tobacco-free products already exist, such as nicotine pouches.

Source: Hansard, 24 March 2022
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View Transcript ([link removed] )


** Links of the Week
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** Bob Blackman on Smoke-Free 2030

During Prime Minister's Questions, Bob Blackman MP, Chair of the APPG on Smoking and Health, asked the Prime Minister about raising the age of legal sale of tobacco products and imposing a levy on the profits of tobacco companies to pay for the costs of tobacco control.
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