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** 24 October 2022
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** UK
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** Letter: The benefits of vaping (#1)
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** Letter: NHS spends a pittance on prevention and that must change (#2)
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** Health inequalities widening between children in Scotland (#3)
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** Plan to name Bristol road after cigarette brand criticised by charities (#4)
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** Parliamentary Activity
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** Retained EU Law & Northern Ireland Protocol Bill (#5)
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** Keir Starmer on prevention in the NHS with Laura Kuenssberg (#6)
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** UK
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** Letter: The benefits of vaping
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**
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** Writing in the Guardian, Professor Ann McNeill, professor of tobacco addiction at King’s College London and 15 other leading academics respond to the recent Guardian editorial ‘Before we embrace vaping, we need to know more about its long-term risks ([link removed]) ’.

Your editorial about vaping does not match the science. No credible scientist says vaping is “completely safe” – few things are. The point is that vapes are far, far less harmful than smoking. Moreover, the public health consensus that vaping is a “much less harmful” alternative to smoking is based on robust independent reviews of the scientific evidence, not “assumptions”.

The evidence on whether vaping helps smokers to quit is not “mixed”, as your editorial suggests. The weight of high-quality evidence – from Cochrane, among others – shows e-cigarettes are more effective than nicotine replacement therapy in helping smokers quit. Cochrane reviews are a highly trusted source of objective health evidence used by policy makers worldwide.

Vaping is a harm reduction option for people trying to quit deadly tobacco smoking and the availability of e-cigarettes in the UK has helped many to do this. If all smokers switched to vaping, many lives could be saved and much cancer, heart and lung disease avoided.

The UK’s “liberal approach” very clearly does not recommend use of e-cigarettes by people who have never smoked. The public health community is united in the need for measures to make e-cigarettes less available and appealing to children. Smoking drives preventable death, disease and health inequalities. We need to maximise use of all available tools to help people quit smoking – including e-cigarettes.

From: Prof Ann McNeill, professor of tobacco addiction, King’s College London, and fifteen leading academics from the University of Oxford, UEA, Imperial College London, University of Edinburgh, University of Nottingham, King’s College London, UCL, and QMUL.

Source: The Guardian, 23 October 2022
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** Letter: NHS spends a pittance on prevention and that must change
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**
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** Writing in the Financial Times, Deborah Arnott, Chief Executive, Action on Smoking & Health; Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, Chair, Alcohol Health Alliance UK; and Katharine Jenner, Director, Obesity Health Alliance, call for greater NHS investment in prevention.

Research carried out for the NHS Confederation shows that increased NHS investment would stimulate economic growth (“NHS boosts wider UK economy, study suggests”, Report, October 17).

However, it’s not what you spend but how you spend it that determines whether investment is productive, and the evidence is clear about how to achieve the greatest impact in reducing disease, disability and premature death: prevent illness in the first place.

Investment in treatment is necessary but not sufficient. It needs to be accompanied by prevention and public health. The Health Foundation has estimated that public health interventions cost three to four times less than that of NHS interventions for each additional year of good health achieved in the population. Yet this is where the cuts have fallen to date, with the public health grant falling by a quarter in real terms between 2015 and 2021, and funding for tobacco control by a third, while NHS spending continued to grow in real terms.

Restoring the public health grant to its historical real-terms per capita value is estimated by the Health Foundation to require an additional £1.4bn a year in 2021-22 price terms by 2024-25. Yet, rather than increased funding, local authorities are facing real-terms further cuts to already threadbare budgets.

The NHS long term plan stepped up to help fill the gap, recognising that the NHS can take important action to “complement” — but not replace — the role of local authorities and the contribution of government. It contained a crucial prevention strand, supporting behaviour change, to tackle the leading modifiable risk factors of smoking, poor diet, high blood pressure, obesity and alcohol and drug use. The plan also promised that action on inequalities would be central to everything that the NHS does.

Where integrated care systems are working collaboratively with local authorities, the prevention and inequalities strands of the plan are beginning to bear fruit. But unless these strands become fully embedded in NHS culture, there are risks that funding will fall away once the plan comes to an end.

The pittance spent on prevention must be nurtured, not neglected, or NHS investment will fail to deliver the economic growth that is being promised.

Source: Financial Times, 24 October 2022
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** Health inequalities widening between children in Scotland
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**
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** An independent review carried out by the Health Foundation, in collaboration with organisations including Glasgow University and the Fraser of Allander Institute, found large and, in some cases widening, health inequalities among children living in the most and least deprived communities in Scotland.

Its report, Health Inequalities in Scotland, found that children in the poorest fifth of areas are at least twice as likely to suffer obesity and infant mortality or to miss out on childhood immunisations.

The interim findings show that one in 10 five-year-olds in Scotland has been at risk of childhood obesity since the start of the 21st century. However, this has been rising over the past decade in more deprived areas and falling in the least deprived.

Smoking in pregnancy, breastfeeding and child development all show signs of progress, but inequalities in these outcomes persist.

The research on health inequalities in children is one of several pieces of analysis due to be released over the coming months, ahead of a final report by the Health Foundation in early 2023.

Source: The Herald, 24 October 2022
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** Plan to name Bristol road after cigarette brand criticised by charities
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**
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** The decision to name a road on a new housing development after a cigarette brand is "morally unacceptable," anti-smoking charities have said.

The 70-home complex sits on the site of a former Imperial Group tobacco factory in Bishopsworth, south Bristol. The name Navy Cut Road was chosen from four suggestions which were picked to reflect the area's industrial past. Bristol City Council says the Mayor's Office is now reviewing the name.

Deborah Arnott, Chief Executive at ASH, said naming a street after a commercial product would be illegal if a brand were to do it. She noted it was legal because it was being done by the council rather than a company, but added: "While it may be legal it is still morally unacceptable."

Ms Arnott said the move would "undermine" Bristol City Council's responsibility to promote health and wellbeing of residents.

Source: BBC News, 24 October 2022
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** Parliamentary Activity
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** Retained EU Law & Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

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** The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill ([link removed]) and Retained EU Law Bill ([link removed]) will be discussed in the House of Lords and Commons (respectively) tomorrow (25 October).

The purpose of the Retained EU Law Bill is to enable the Government to make amendments to retained EU law (REUL) and will automatically repeal any EU-derived legislation that hasn’t been put into UK domestic law by 31st December 2023. This could have a significant impact on tobacco control as EU-derived legislation includes regulation of e-cigarettes and cigarette health warnings.

The purpose of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill is to enable Ministers to amend the operation of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland (“the Northern Ireland Protocol”) included in the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement. It will also provide delegated powers for Ministers to make other parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol cease to have effect in the UK, as well as to implement any agreement with the European Union regarding the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Both bills were discussed on Westminster hour yesterday, 23 October, 51:00 minutes.
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** Keir Starmer on prevention in the NHS with Laura Kuenssberg

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** On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, yesterday 23 October, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer discussed the importance of shifting national healthcare from a treatment model to a preventative model. Starmer said: “[…]we need reform; the NHS needs to move to a preventative model[…]”.
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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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