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NHS GP waiting times will be two weeks, promises Thérèse Coffey
Thérèse Coffey, the health secretary, is expected to set a new target for people to be given a GP appointment within 14 days, or sooner for urgent conditions, with poor performers named and shamed via league tables of waiting times to force surgeries to improve.
In her statement on NHS priorities today, Coffey will make pension tax breaks for doctors, to stop them quitting the NHS, one of her main announcements. She will also ask the one million volunteers who came forward during the pandemic to help out again in a “national endeavour” for the NHS.
Coffey is expected to promise a “laser-like focus on the needs of patients”. On GP appointments, Coffey will pledge to speed up appointments by using more pharmacists and other support staff to free doctors’ time, improve current telephone systems and reduce the need for an “8am scramble” for bookings.
Coffey is also hoping to announce about £450 million for social care to help with NHS plans to discharge patients earlier. The funds are unlikely to be taken from the NHS, despite suggestions to this effect by Liz Truss during the Tory leadership campaign, but Coffey may talk about spending more on social care instead of health in future years.
However, Martin Marshall, head of the Royal College of GPs, said that “lumbering a struggling service with more expectations, without a plan as to how to deliver them, will only serve to add to the intense workload and workforce pressures GPs and our teams are facing, whilst having minimal impact on the care our patients receive”. He said GPs were performing more consultations than before the pandemic “with fewer qualified, full-time equivalent GPs than in 2015”. Marshall criticised plans for “arbitrary performance rankings” by comparing surgeries’ waits, saying international research proved they did not work in improving access to or standards of care.
Source: The Times, 22 September 2022
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Study finds smoking is main reason there are more cancer cases among poorer Brits
Researchers have found that more than 61% of cancer cases a year which are linked to deprivation could have been prevented were it not for smoking, with cancer rates 17% higher among the most deprived people compared to those among the richest.
The study, published in PLOS ONE, found that 21% of cancers among the most deprived fifth of Brits were caused by smoking, compared to under 10% of cancers among the richest Brits. The study also found that, if smoking rates matched those of the most affluent groups, there would be over 5,000 fewer deprivation-linked cancer cases diagnosed a year. That would mean 16,000 cases of cancer among Brits could be avoided.
Researchers focused on 15 types of cancer which are strongly linked to smoking, the most common being lung, throat, bladder and oesophagus cancers. The study’s methodology involved looking at incidence of the disease linked to smoking between 2013 and 2017, cross-referenced with the prevalence of smoking between 2003 and 2007. These time periods were intended to account for the time taken for cancer to develop.
Those in more deprived areas are more likely to experience stress and a lack of support - which form barriers to quitting, according to charity ASH.
Lead study author Nick Payne from Cancer Research UK said: “This study is the first of its kind to quantitatively assess the contribution of smoking to deprivation-associated cancer incidence in England. The findings help to confirm that smoking is the key driver of cancer incidence inequalities in England, therefore policy measures should continue to bring down smoking prevalence with a specific focus on the most deprived populations.”
Source: Metro, 21 September 2022
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Campaigner lobbies government to ban disposable vapes as a threat to the environment
Disposable vapes are increasingly being found in rivers, harming animals and using up rare materials, a campaigner has warned. Environmentalist Tony Harwood from Maidstone has launched a petition calling on the government to ban the sale of disposable vapes because he claims they are destroying the environment.
A recent survey by Opinium found that 18% of people had bought a vape in the previous year, with 7% buying a single-use device. The survey suggested that about 168 million disposable vapes are being bought in the UK each year, which means that around 10 tonnes of precious metals used in them is ending up in landfills.
Mark Miodownik, professor of materials and society at University College, London said on the concern of single-use plastics: "I don't think people realise that when they throw away a vape they are throwing away electronics and large amount of lithium, which is absolutely essential to fuel the green economy and move away from fossil fuels. It's in our laptops, our mobile phones and our electric cars."
Deborah Arnott, ASH chief executive, said: “If you’re a smoker using vapes to help you quit, that’s great, just don’t use disposables. They are single use plastics which contain batteries – a double whammy as it makes them very hard to recycle. Disposables are an environmental nightmare as they are just being thrown in the rubbish and are ending up in landfill.”
Source: Kent Online, 22 September 2022
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Remembering Councillor Alison Todd (1975-2022)
It is with great sadness that Surrey County Council and Spelthorne Borough Council announce the death of Cllr Alison Todd (formally Griffiths) after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2021.. Alison is survived by her four children, five grandchildren and devoted husband.
Alison, 47, was a dedicated County and Borough Councillor for several years. Tributes have poured in from colleagues across both councils and the local community, describing Alison’s kindness, passion and dedication to local residents.
Tim Oliver, Leader of Surrey County Council, said: “Alison was a public servant in the truest sense. She was committed to her local community and making people’s lives better. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and was never shy in speaking up and demonstrating her real passion for what she believed in. We are devastated to lose her, and she will be greatly missed by all who knew her.”
Speaking about her diagnosis in 2021, Cllr Todd said: "It's devastating. It's something you just can't get your head around - I could have dealt with 'you have cancer' but 'Stage 4, end of life' knocked me for six. You just never think it's going to be you." Cllr Griffiths had been smoking since she was 12. She had tried to quit on numerous occasions, including times when she ran stop-smoking campaigns as councillor. "It was a habit I couldn't break. But the day I got the diagnosis, I gave up very easily," she said.
Alison joined Surrey County Council in 2017. During her time as a councillor, she served as Deputy Cabinet Member for Health between May 2019 and May 2021; prior to that she was the Deputy Cabinet Member for All-Age learning from May 2018 to April 2019. She was also a Spelthorne Borough Councillor in the Sunbury Common ward between 2015 and 2019.
Source: Surrey Live, 22 September 2022
Comment from ASH:
ASH was deeply sad to hear of the death of Surrey County Councillor Alison Todd. Alison became a passionate anti-smoking advocate when she finally stopped, having been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, still only in her 40s. She rightly called herself a Lung Cancer Warrior - calling on all smokers with a cough lasting over 3 weeks to get it checked out! At the 50th anniversary of ASH she gave us this quote which says it all, “Finding out my life is coming to an end has been unbelievably tough, not just for me but my family too. I share our Government’s vision of a country without smoking and I urge them from the bottom of my heart to take the action needed to make it happen."
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TikTok removes posts promoting weight loss aids to children
TikTok has removed postings promoting migraine and epilepsy drugs to under-18s as weight loss aids after criticism that hosting them was a danger to young people’s health.
The social media platform, which is popular among teenagers, acted after an investigation by the Pharmaceutical Journal found that users were being offered prescription drugs as diet pills. The journal found that advertisements for epilepsy, alcohol and addiction and migraine drugs were promoted to a TikTok user, despite them being registered as a girl aged under 16.
During 90 minutes spent viewing the platform’s output the journal found that 31 of the 100 most popular posts promoted use of diet pills for people wanting to lose weight. But health experts said this was “completely inappropriate” for people of any age and could cause harm. Some of the drugs TikTok featured have been linked to birth defects and other serious side-effects. An appetite suppressant drug called phentermine, and products based on it, were the prescription drugs most commonly mentioned in the posts. Phentermine is not licensed for use in the UK.
Professor John Wilding said that another of the drugs for sale, topiramate, which is used to treat epilepsy and migraines “has never been approved for weight loss in the EU or the UK as it has some significant potential adverse events”, including the risk of damage to unborn children and babies.
A spokesperson for TikTok said: “Our community guidelines make clear that we do not allow the promotion or trade of controlled substances, including prescription weight loss medication, and we will remove content that violates these policies.”
The journal said TikTok did remove some videos but not all those it had found. TikTok have previously come under fire for letting accounts market and sell vapes to underage users on its site.
Source: Guardian, 22 September 2022
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World leaders commit to the Global Compact on Noncommunicable Diseases to save 50 million lives by 2030
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO, released a new report calling on global leaders to take urgent action on non-communicable diseases (NCDs), now outnumbering communicable diseases as the world’s leading killers, responsible for 17 million premature deaths each year. To accelerate action, Dr. Tedros renewed the two-year appointment of Michael R. Bloomberg as WHO’s Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries. Bloomberg’s work advances the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 3.4) to reduce global NCD deaths by one-third through high-impact population-level policies and programs implemented in cities around the world.
“Invisible numbers: The real scale of non-communicable diseases” data portal brings together for the first time all World Health Organisation data related to NCDs for 194 countries. The report and portal highlight the extent of the global burden of NCDs, the risk factors and the progress each country is making in its efforts to combat these diseases and conditions.
Public awareness of the links between NCDs and their risk factors such as tobacco and alcohol consumption, unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity remains relatively low. Nevertheless, the majority of people surveyed in all countries support a number of proven interventions and policies that can reduce NCD mortality, such as including more green spaces in urban health design and increasing tobacco taxes.
Source: Ex Bulletin, 22 September 2022
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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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