Cutting VAT on vaping products and helping smokers admitted to hospital to quit are being suggested as ways to reduce smoking rates.
VAT on e-cigarettes should be reduced from 20% to 5% to bring them into line with sales on nicotine gum and patches, the Local Government Association (LGA) says. The LGA, which represents councils in England and Wales, says current legislation allows a 5% rate to be applied to “pharmaceutical products designed to help people stop smoking tobacco”.
It argues that there is growing evidence to suggest that using e-cigarettes can help people quit smoking. The LGA says making legal vaping products more affordable and treating them equally with other stop-smoking methods will incentivise more people to quit the habit.
Councils are also calling on the Government to impose a Smokefree 2030 levy on tobacco manufacturers, with the revenue directed to the areas, occupational groups and communities where it was most needed. Last year, around 13% of the UK population smoked, with smoking-related illness such as lung cancer still being one of the leading causes of preventable death in the UK.
The LGA’s Community Wellbeing Board chairman David Fothergill said: “There is increasing evidence that e-cigarettes, along with other dedicated support, act as an important gateway to help people to stop smoking, which reduces serious illness and death as well as other pressures on health and care services. Every pound invested by Government in council-run services such as public health helps to relieve pressure on other services like the NHS, criminal justice and welfare."
Meanwhile, the British Thoracic Society (BTS) said that more healthcare workers should be trained in how to help patients stop smoking. Preliminary findings from the society’s annual audit, which looked at 14,000 patient records across 120 UK hospitals during 2021, found that only 45% of smokers in hospital were recorded as having a brief chat with a healthcare worker about smoking cessation.
The BTS said that these brief conversations have been proven to inspire smokers to quit. The audit also suggested that only half of NHS trusts were offering regular smoking cessation training to staff.
Dr Paul Walker, BTS chair, said: “Tackling tobacco dependence is fundamental to respiratory medicine and all respiratory professionals need to make every contact count, using that opportunity to offer advice and help to aid smokers to quit. As we begin to recover services post-Covid we need to ensure that all hospitalised smokers are offered advice and pharmacotherapy, rather than the minority who currently receive this. This requires a focus from frontline healthcare organisations on smoking cessation training which is essential to deliver this intervention.”
It comes as Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) released new data showing that 42% of smokers expect to get advice about quitting every time they visit the GP. The survey of 602 British smokers also found that 28% believe such advice would prompt them to make an attempt to quit, according to the poll released to mark No Smoking Day.
ASH chief executive Deborah Arnott said: “No one should give up on giving up. Every time someone tries to stop smoking, they are a step closer to success. Like anything worth doing it can take practice to stop smoking – but there is lots of help out there.
“Smokers are three times more likely to succeed in quitting with help from a trained professional than with willpower alone. Healthcare professionals can refer them to this support but smokers can also find their local free service by searching ‘smokefree’ and entering their postcode.”
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