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Smoking still the 'poor relation' in tackling heart disease

ASH today pushed the Government to place smoking at the centre of its heart disease programme by spending serious money on smoking cessation programmes. ASH drew attention to gigantic anomalies in the rhetoric and the realities revealed in expenditure on smoking cessation versus expenditure on cholesterol lowering drugs:

Clive Bates,Director of ASH claimed that the new Framework must sort out spendingpriorities within the NHS: " The challenge for NHS is to spend its limited money on the things that make the greatest improvement to health, and that just doesn't happen at the moment.  We need to see the rhetoric of prevention and public health translated to hard cash where it makes a difference."

"There is a 20-fold imbalance between spending on these cholesterol-lowering drugs and spending on smoking cessation, yet smoking cessation delivers about ten to twenty times better value for money in terms of lives saved.  It is these sort of absurdities that health ministers must tackle under the new Framework."

"Ministers talk a good talk about smoking and heart disease, but it is still the poor relation when judged by the hard cash spent on it." said Bates.

ASH called onAlan Milburn to divert £60 million from increased tobacco tax revenues expectedin the March budget to smoking cessation. "The Chancellor announced that a five percent real increase in tobacco taxation would generate £300 million additional revenues to spend in the NHS.  We want to see just one percent ofthat increase spent on delivering a world-class smoking cessation programme inthe NHS."

[1] Yvette Cooper, Parliamentaryanswer to Kevin Barron MP, Hansard 7 February 2000 col 62WThe same answer suggests spending on statins will rise to £275 million by 2001.

[2] Raw M, McNeill A, West R, Smokingcessation guidelines for health professionals, Thorax, Vol 53.  supplement, Dec 1998. thorax.bmjjournals.com/content/vol53/suppl_5

[3] Ebrahim S. et al What role forstatins? A review and economic model. Health Technology Assessment 1999; Vol.3 No.19. www.hta.nhsweb.nhs.uk/execsumm/SUMM319.HTM

Ref. [2] and[3] were cited by Yvette Cooper in ref [1] as appropriate sources forcost-effectiveness data.

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