Making Smoking Obsolete
16th June 2022An independent review by Dr Javed Khan OBE into the government’s ambition to make England smokefree by 2030 found that without further action, England will miss the smokefree 2030 target by at least 7 years
In 2019, the government set an objective for England to be smokefree by 2030, meaning only 5% of the population would smoke by then. Without achieving this objective, the government will simply not meet its manifesto commitment “to extend healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035”. It will also prevent the government from fulfilling its ambition to save more lives as part of a new 10-Year Cancer Plan.
An independent review by Dr Javed Khan OBE into the government’s ambition to make England smokefree by 2030 found that without further action, England will miss the smokefree 2030 target by at least 7 years, and the poorest areas in society will not meet it until 2044. To have any chance of hitting the smokefree 2030 target, the government need to accelerate the rate of decline of people who smoke, by 40%.
Critical recommendations
Dr Khan gave 4 recommendations that he said are “critical ‘must dos’ for the government”, around which all other interventions are based.
1. Increased investment
Comprehensive investment of an additional £125 million per year in smokefree 2030 policies, to fund the easily accessible, high quality support that smokers need to help them quit. This includes investing an extra £70 million per year in stop smoking services, ringfenced for this purpose.
If the government cannot fund this themselves, they should ‘make the polluter pay’ and either introduce a tobacco industry levy, or generate additional corporation tax, with immediate effect.
2. Increase the age of sale
The government must stop young people starting to smoke, and Dr Khan recommends increasing the age of sale from 18, by one year, every year until no one can buy a tobacco product in this country.
3. Promote vaping
The government must embrace the promotion of vaping as “the most effective tool to help smokers quit”. Dr Khan states “We know vapes are not a ‘silver bullet’ nor are they totally risk-free, but the alternative is far worse.”
4. Improve prevention in the NHS
Prevention must become part of the NHS’s DNA. To reduce the £2.4 billion that smoking costs the NHS every year, the NHS must deliver on its commitments in the Long Term Plan. It must do more, offering smokers advice and support to quit at every interaction they have with health services, whether that be through GPs, hospitals, psychiatrists, midwives, pharmacists, dentists or optometrists. The NHS should invest to save, committing resource for this purpose.
Dr Khan concluded: “These interventions are critical as they will lead to exponential gains in reducing health disparities. The supporting recommendations I have set out, present a holistic response to the challenge we face. Taken together, and if implemented in full, I believe these actions will get the government to its 2030 target and then lead to a smokefree generation. But to get there, there can be no short cuts, no quick fixes, no excuses. So, I urge the government to seize this moment and commit to making smoking obsolete.”
Source: www.gov.uk
