I was asked yesterday to comment on a report, embargoed until midnight last night:
According to the press release:
A major new report released today [Tuesday June 26] by the Royal College of Physicians calls for a radical change in the way the NHS treats smoking, by providing opt-out cessation services as a routine component of all hospital care.
Giving smokers the help they need to quit smoking while in hospital will save lives, improve quality of life as well as increasing life expectancy for all smokers, and help to reduce the current £1 billion per year cost to the NHS of smoking by patients and staff.
The report ‘Hiding in plain sight: Treating tobacco dependency in the NHS’ from the RCP’s Tobacco Advisory Group says that:
– Treating tobacco dependency is not just about preventing disease: in many cases it represents effective disease treatment. Clinicians working in all areas of medicine can improve their patients’ lives by helping them to quit.
– Current models of delivering stop smoking services separately from mainstream NHS services, while successful in the past, may now not be the best approach because the patient has to seek help themselves.
– Most health professionals receive little or no training in treating smokers
– The NHS does not collect data on smoking treatment delivery, or have a payment tariff for treating tobacco dependency
– Smoking treatment also tends to be squeezed out, even in the management of diseases caused by smoking, by other, less cost-effective interventions
To address all these issues, the report recommends:
– As smoking cessation treatments save money for the NHS, in the short as well as the long term, they should be prioritised as a core NHS activity
– Smoking cessation should be incorporated as a systematic and opt-out component of all NHS services, and delivered in smoke-free settings
– As systematic identification of smokers and delivering cessation support doubles quit rates, health service commissioners should ensure that smokers are identified and receive cost-effective smoking interventions – failing to do so is as negligent as not treating cancer
– We should allow e-cigarettes to be used on NHS sites to support smokers to remain smoke-free and help to sustain smoke-free policies
– Legislation requiring hospitals to implement completely smoke-free grounds should be introduced, as the current guidance isn’t being implemented
– Training in smoking cessation should be introduced into all undergraduate and postgraduate healthcare professional training curricula and as mandatory training for the entire NHS healthcare professional workforce.
In response Forest issued this statement:
"Providing smoking cessation services to patients in hospital is at best a questionable use of public money.
"Smokers contribute £12 billion a year in tobacco-related taxes. That far exceeds the estimated cost to the NHS of smoking by patients and staff.
"According to polls, the general public would like to see taxpayers' money spent on providing more doctors and nurses and reducing A&E waiting times. Tacking smoking is not a top priority for most people.
"Smoking is a choice and if adults choose to smoke they shouldn't be pestered to quit while in hospital."
Most media reports today led with the recommendation that the use of e-cigarettes be allowed on hospital grounds, which we hadn't commented on.
Nevertheless we were quoted by the Daily Mail, Mail Online, ITV News the Daily Star and, thanks to the Press Association, hundreds of local titles (online).
Curiously, a journalist from The Times rang Forest for a quote but the subs cut it. (Help smokers quit, doctors tell hospitals.
Update: I shall be discussing this on BBC Radio 5 Live between 1.00 and 1.30pm.
Professor John Britton, chair of the RCP’s Tobacco Advisory Group and lead editor of the report, will also be on but he doesn't want to be on at the same time as me!
Update: On the insistence (apparently) of Prof Britton we were kept apart so we couldn't have a direct 'debate'.
Instead Britton was interviewed by presenter Nihau Arthanayake who then interviewed me.
Lo and behold, Britton was then given a second bite of the cherry and used it to attack Forest and our tobacco funding!
Needless to say I wasn't given a chance to respond.
Thanks, Five Live!