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The Times view on Thérèse Coffey’s lack of enthusiasm for reducing smoking: Smoke Signals
The Times editors share their view on news that the health secretary, Thérèse Coffey, may be dropping plans for a new strategy on smoking. They say that it is rare for a government to set a long-term strategy and stick to it, rarer still that such plans prove demonstrably successful. But in the matter of smoking cessation the Conservative Party has done just that. Since 2011 the number of cigarette smokers has fallen to less than 14% of the population and in 2019 the government set the ambitious target of making England smokefree by 2030.
On the latest estimates the government will not meet its smoke-free target in some of the poorest areas of the country until 2044. That Coffey appears to be less than enthusiastic about this commitment is as disappointing as it is wrong, The Times says.
Coffey has refused to support the smoke reduction plan for England when pressed by interviewers. She said she was “not aware” of the status of the policy, despite her department having previously given multiple assurances that the next stage of the plan would be produced later this year. Her priority, she stated, was “ABCD: ambulances, backlogs, care and doctors and dentists”.
Her ABCD approach should not come at the expense of a sensible approach to smoking reduction, with its benefits reducing future burden on the NHS, and being a major contributor to achieving the government’s manifesto commitment of extending “healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035”.
The article states that smoking reduction has long moved beyond the binary tension between individual freedom and public health, with public cross-party support for further government action to support smoking cessation only increasing over the past ten years, and government action lagging behind. Nearly half the population believe that the government is not doing enough, up from less than a third a decade ago.
The piece concludes stating: “The evidence shows that the present approach, of gradual tightening in tax and advertising, is working. Rather than be intransigent about, or worse, embarrassed by, this record, Coffey should be its champion.”
Source: The Times, 11 October 2022
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Sajid Javid urges Thérèse Coffey not to ditch smoking in cars ban
Former health secretary Sajid Javid advised Liz Truss not to back away from commitments to reduce smoking and urged her to introduce a plan he prepared to reduce huge gaps in healthy life expectancy.
Truss has been sceptical about interventionist measures, arguing last week that a belief in freedom meant not telling people how to live their life. But at the launch of the Legatum Institute’s UK prosperity index, Javid argued: “People should have freedom and do what they want to do, as long as they don’t tread on the rights of others. That’s what Conservatives believe in. But what good is that freedom if you’re not healthy?”
As health secretary he drew up a white paper on health disparities that was expected to set out measures to reduce smoking rates. It was also expected to make a commitment to reduce child obesity and other problems that mean people in poor areas have 20 fewer years in good health than those in rich areas.
Coffey has denied abandoning that plan but Javid’s message to her was: “Get with it, in short.” He said it was “not unusual for an incoming secretary of state to want to review your big programmes [but] you shouldn’t take that long to review something that’s so blindingly obvious that you need to be getting on with.”
He argued it was “good economics” to improve people’s health to get a record number of those off work due to ill health back into employment, adding that he hoped the government could go ahead with a smoking reduction plan.
The Legatum Institute report found that health in the UK had been declining for a decade, with the poorest areas far behind the richest. The government is unlikely to hit its target of increasing healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035 and might even see it fall, the report said.
See also: Legatum Institute report - UK Prosperity Index 2022
Source: The Times, 13 October 2022
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Stoptober: What happens to your body when you quit smoking
With Stoptober in full swing, MailOnline spoke to leading experts to explain what happens when you quit smoking, sharing a timeline of how your body starts to heal just 20 minutes after smoking your last cigarette up to 10 years. .
Excerpts from the timeline include:
20 minutes: Just 20 minutes after stubbing out your final cigarette your heart rate will start to calm down. Nicotine, the highly-addictive chemical in tobacco, increases your heart rate by stimulating the release of adrenaline. But the effects on your heart of giving up may be slightly less, depending on how many years you have smoked for.
2 weeks: Two weeks without smoking and your circulation will have improved. Blood will be pumping through to your heart and muscles much better. This all down to the chemicals on cigarettes making the walls of your arteries sticky, according to the British Heart Foundation.
The fatty material can begin to clog your arteries and reduce the space for blood to flow properly. If the arteries that carry blood to your heart get clogged, it can lead to a heart attack. However, after quitting this risk reduces.
3 months: After three months your lung function increases by up to 10%, according to the NHS. By this time, coughs, wheezing and breathing problems start to ease. Dr Pemberton, one of the experts the Mail spoke to, warned people to not be alarmed if they actually develop a cough after quitting, explaining this is just a sign your lungs are starting to work again.
1 year: If you manage to not light a single cigarette for a whole year, your risk of heart attack will have halved compared with a smoker's, according to NHS figures. Just like the risk of a heart attack, the risk of heart disease will also decrease by half after one year of not smoking.
10 years: After a decade of not smoking the risk of death from lung cancer will have halved, compared with a smoker. A study in 2004, that followed up a 50-year study of British doctors, found that if smokers quit before the age of 30, they can avoid more than 90% of the risks of lung cancer caused by smoking.
Read the Mail Online article for eight tips to stop smoking.
Source: Mail Online, 12 October 2022
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Opinion: Enough Safer Gambling Week nonsense - only reform will reduce harm and boost economic growth
The gambling industry in its current form poses a danger to public health and the Government's objective of going for growth. Long awaited reforms are needed in full and undiluted, writes Strategy Director of Gambling with Lives, Will Prochaska in Politics Home.
He outlines the “circus” that is the annual Safer Gambling Week campaign from the 17 to 23 October, where the industry will urge people it has lured into gambling to “set their limits” or “take time to think”. He likens their rhetoric to the opioid giant Sackler family, following that addicts are the problem, not the industry peddling addictive products.
Prochaska also draws comparisons with Big Tobacco’s strategy: citing the economic benefit argument to prevent regulation of its addictive products. But the truth, he states, is that gambling is a weight on the economy and a barrier to growth pointing to studies from NERA and the Social Market Foundation that show making gambling legislation fit for the digital age the government would not only boost growth and jobs but would positively impact the cost-of-living crisis and overall tax revenues.
He continues that gambling profits are made disproportionately from deprived communities meaning any reduction in the gambling industry’s activity will also support levelling up, adding that gambling is estimated to cost the public purse almost £1.3 billion each year in England. If Truss is serious about growth, he concludes, gambling regulations must be updated, and the “circus” leave town.
Source: Politics Home, 13 October 2022
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Councils to get direct funding to research health inequalities for the first time
Thirteen councils will share £50m to finance "new, high quality" research into health inequalities across their areas. The funding from The Department of Health and Social Care, overseen by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) will be used to set up health determinants research collaborations between experts and academics. It is the first time that local authorities have been given direct funding to research health inequalities, according to DHSC.
The department described the £50m as being part of the government's commitment to level up the country. DHSC said: "This will enable new high-quality research into the local challenges affecting people’s health such as facilitating research to better understand and introduce interventions to help with childhood obesity, Covid recovery, mental wellbeing and drug use." It added that the funding was part of the government's Plan for Patients: supporting people to stay well and within the community, easing pressure on health and care services.
However, while this funding is welcomed by the wider sector there is growing speculation that the government is set to ditch the health inequalities white paper that had been promised by the previous administration.
Prof Jim McManus, president of the UK Association of Directors of Public Health, said: "We know that health inequalities are one of the major barriers facing communities the length and breadth of the country, especially for disadvantaged groups and areas. HDRCs will help drive the research culture within local government, building on the local knowledge that authorities already have and enable what is being done to be more readily researched and evaluated to make a difference to local people.”
The 13 councils receiving health inequalities research funding are: Tower Hamlets LBC; Newcastle City Council; Doncaster MBC; Aberdeen City Council; Bradford City MDC; Plymouth City Council; Gateshead Council; Blackpool Council; Coventry City Council; Middlesbrough Council; Redcar & Cleveland BC; Lambeth LBC; Medway Council; Islington LBC.
Source: Local Government Chronicle, 12 October 2022
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