Issue - meetings

Tobacco Control

Meeting: 10/10/2011 - The Former Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing (Item 21)

21 Tobacco Control pdf icon PDF 460 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Alison Iliff, Public Health Specialist, presented the Tobacco Bulletins for July and September, 2011, which summarised the latest tobacco control activity within Rotherham, national and international news related to tobacco and smoking and outlined any relevant training and development opportunities.

 

A powerpoint presentation was also given as follows:-

 

Scale of the Challenge

-        Early year smoking caused the greatest number of preventable deaths – 81,400

-        The decline in smoking rates had stalled

-        National children’s rates of smoking (age 11-15)

-        Smoking in pregnancy

-        Smoking cost the local economy millions every year (£71.9M in Rotherham)

-        The annual cost of smoking to smokers (compared to additional costs to our community) – each year, smokers in Rotherham spent approximately £81.5M on tobacco product contributing roughly £62.1M in duty to the Exchequer.  This meant that there was an annual funding shortfall of £9.8M in this area

 

Smoking Attitudes and Behaviours

-        Children not adults start smoking – 90% of smokers started before the age of 19

-        Children were 3 times as likely to start smoking if their parents smoked

-        The majority of children who smoked got their cigarettes from a ‘friend’

-        The poorer you were the more likely you were to smoke

-        Smoking was 1 of the greatest causes of health inequalities

-        Poorer smokers were as likely to want to quit and try to quit but half as likely to succeed

-        Smokefree environments enjoyed increasing public support.

 

Tobacco Control and Local Authority Role

-        The World Bank has developed a ‘6 strand’ strategy for reducing tobacco use:-

1.      stopping the promotion of tobacco

2.      making tobacco less affordable

3.      effective regulation of tobacco products

4.      helping tobacco users to quit

5.      reducing exposure to secondhand smoke

6.      effective communication for tobacco control

 

Significant and Growling Role for Local Authorities

-        Local Authority responsibilities included enforcement on:

Age of Sale

Smokefree’ Places

Smuggled and counterfeit tobacco

Advertising ban

From 2013 Local Authorities would take on responsibility to commission services to motivate and support smokers to quit their habit

 

Working Together for Better Health

-        Local Government including Police and Fire

-        Local Health Services

-        Organisations that work across neighbouring localities within a region

-        Employers

-        Voluntary sector organisations

-        Smokers particularly groups with high rates of smoking e.g. routine and manual smokers

 

Benefits of Working across Local Boundaries

-        Marketing and mass media – to ensure ‘health messages’ were supportive, clear and do not conflict

-        Tackling smuggling – criminal gangs do not pay heed to local government boundaries

-        Surveys, research and data collection – cost savings can be had from collectively commissioning research and surveys and sharing the results

 

Challenges for Rotherham

-        Smoking prevalence not declining (although data may not be reliable)

-        Smoking in pregnancy was declining, but was still much higher than the national and regional average

-        Understanding the apparent increase in young smokers and implementing further programmes to tackle youth smoking  ...  view the full minutes text for item 21