Last month the Government launched two independent reviews to tackle health disparities.
One will focus on 'ethnic inequalities for medical devices', the other on tobacco control.
Javed Khan OBE, former CEO of children’s charity Barnardo’s, will lead an independent review of the government’s bold ambition to make England smoke free by 2030. While the government has made good long-term progress in reducing smoking rates to their lowest ever level, there are an estimated 6 million smokers in England and smoking is still one of the largest drivers of health disparities.
Both independent reviews will form part of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities’ (OHID) agenda to tackle inequalities in health and care, which will include the publication of the health disparities white paper in spring and the Tobacco Control Plan later in the year.
Javed Khan has since been active on social media encouraging users to contact him. For example:
CALL OUT: I want to hear your views and what we can do to support current smokers to quit, and to stop people taking up smoking. Use the hashtag #TobaccoIndependentReview.
Questions he wants answers to include:
- How do we stop people, especially children and young people, from starting smoking in the first place?
- Have you quit smoking for good? What worked? What do you think could work better?
- Changing behaviour is key. What changed your mindset on smoking? Have you been persuaded by what you see in the media?
- What is your view on e-cigarettes? We know they are effective at helping people to quit smoking. How can we stop children and non-smokers from using them?
- Have you ever used a Stop Smoking Service to quit smoking? Or spoken to your GP about it? What was your experience?
Since then he's tweeted:
One thing that’s struck me so far is the scale of the problem. Tobacco is still the single largest cause of preventable mortality with approx. 6 million smokers in England
The scale of the problem is not equal – tobacco addiction hits poorer communities the most & those already affected by other inequalities. And children whose parents smoke are 4 times as likely to take up smoking themselves.
He also tweeted:
Very productive week on the #tobaccoindependentreview. Several roundtable discussions with parliamentarians, devolved administrations, academics, civil society, directors of public health & clinicians. The scale of the problem is enormous, but the solutions are within arm’s reach.
It would be easy to turn our back on the review on the grounds that nothing we say will change the stop smoking narrative and he will probably be deaf to our views, which don't support the 'smoke free' endgame, but that would be wrong.
Whenever consumers have an opportunity to have their say we must take it. I also enjoy a challenge.
If Javed Khan genuinely wants to hear 'your views' why shouldn't confirmed smokers have their say too? Likewise non-smokers like me who are sick of the continual war on tobacco.
If however you need any further motivation to contribute some thoughts to the review let me draw your attention to the following tweet by our old friend Martin Dockrell, tobacco control lead at the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (formerly Public Health England) and former head of policy at ASH.
Chuffed to be assisting @JavedKhanCEO on his project.
Clearly you don't have to be on Twitter to respond to the review and I would actually suggest you don't use the medium of 280 characters. Instead, if you have a serious point (it doesn't have to be long), you should email TobaccoIndependentReview@dhsc.gov.uk and I strongly urge you to do so.
In particular, if you are a confirmed smoker who doesn't want to quit or be forced to quit, please write and explain why you smoke and why you object to the Government's war on tobacco including the 'smoke free' 2030 target.
You might also respond to some of his questions (above) but feel free to make any other points you think might be relevant to his review.
The problem with tobacco control reviews (and this is a classic example) is that they begin from the false premise that most if not all smokers want to stop and no-one should ever smoke so it's up to those of us who have an alternative view to make it known, not least because we know Javed Khan's review will feed into the Government's new Tobacco Control Plan.
I haven't seen a closing date for contributions so my advice is to respond as soon as possible (ie this week).
A reminder of that email address:
TobaccoIndependentReview@dhsc.gov.uk
See also another Dockrell tweet. If this attempt to rally the tobacco control establishment doesn't persuade you to make YOUR voice heard as well I don't know what will!
