New public health alliance targets smoke free London

Two weeks ago a new anti-smoking ‘partnership’ was launched.

According to the London Evening Standard (Public health bosses launch plan to make London smokefree by 2030):

The NHS has joined forces with MPs, academics and the Greater London Authority GLA) to form the London Tobacco Alliance, which will highlight the harms caused by smoking and promote smoke-free environments.

The Standard quoted Bob Blackman, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health (run by ASH), Professor Kevin Fenton, regional director, London Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, and Tracy Parr, programme director of the London Tobacco Alliance and Stop Smoking London.

According to Parr:

"The London Tobacco Alliance will act as a regional voice to make London smokefree by 2030 and will focus on the inequalities around smoking. We already have a number of key partners including OHID, ASH, NHS England, the GLA as well as Directors for Public Health and London Trading Standards.”

Curiously the role of programme director for the LTA was first advertised on the Jobs Go Public website on June 6, 2021 (15 months ago) when the declared ambition was to achieve a smoke-free London by 2029, not 2030.

The position was described as 'part-time' (three days a week) with a salary of between £43,931 and £48,159 for the 21 hours, 'initially on an 18-month fixed term contract or secondment'.

Applicants were told 'This is a pan-London post with employment through the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, host of the London Smoking Cessation Transformation Programme.' However 'The programme is jointly funded by London’s local authorities, with significant in-kind resource provided by partners.'

The project was finally launched on October 26, 2022, with Tracy Parr in post. According to the sparkling new LTA website:

London Tobacco Alliance partners include Directors of Public Health, representatives from the Office of Health Improvement and Disparities, the NHS in London, London Councils, the GLA as well as voluntary sector organisations and academic institutions ...

More broadly we are local authorities, directors of public health, healthcare professionals, sector experts, volunteers, councillors, politicians and advisors – coming together with a strategic aim to make London smokefree by 2030.

The LTA, the website adds, is 'the culmination of years of work' and 'the first of its kind in the capital'. But is it? I don't want to burst their bubble but it reminds me of a long-forgotten campaign, SmokeFree London, that was active in the early Noughties.

Described as an “an alliance of NHS health authorities and other agencies” (sound familiar?), SmokeFree London initially campaigned for a unilateral ban on smoking in public places in London.

When that failed, following a London Assembly report on smoking in public places that failed to find sufficient evidence to justify a ban, the campaign seemed to lose steam and was last heard calling for a national ban on smoking in restaurants.

SmokeFree London was headed by Judith Watt who I nevertheless remember with some affection. On one occasion when we were chatting off air she asked me why I didn't do something more productive with my talents. I was flattered she thought I had any.

When she returned to London (having moved to Australia) to attend the E-Cigarette Summit in 2018, I wrote:

For a period Judith rivalled Clive Bates (who was director of ASH from 1998-2003) as the go to spokesman for the anti-smoking brigade.

She was a tough opponent with an occasionally sharp tongue but she was never unpleasant and I rather liked her.

On one occasion we were invited to Television Centre in west London to discuss some issue live in the studio. The item got pushed back so we had time to chat while we waited.

I thought we were getting on rather well. As soon as we were on air however we had a pretty fierce argument. I can’t recall what was said, or even what we were talking about, but I do remember that I enjoyed it!

We will monitor the work of the London Tobacco Alliance with interest (noting the absence of the most important stakeholder of all – the consumer) but I'm not convinced that such alliances are very effective.

Glasgow 2000 for example was an 'alliance of public, voluntary and academic sector organisations established in 1983 with the aim of making Glasgow a smoke-free city by the year 2000'.

Remind me, how did that go?

Comments

[Bucko]

Clearly Judith Watt thought that smoke free nannying was something productive she was doing with her talents

I fail to see what another group of the same old people will do, apart from hoover up some more taxpayers money