Stop smoking service could be hit by cuts

A £4 million cut to health budgets could hit work to reduce the amount of smokers in the county, it has been revealed.

Dr Kevin Lewis, director of Help2Change, which runs the Help2Quit smoking NHS service, has written a report that will go before Shropshire Council’s Health and Adult Social Care Committee on Monday.

In it he voices his fears that budget cuts will have an impact on the hard work gone in to the project.

His report says: “Due to the financial pressures on the council, a £4m reduction in public health spending has been proposed.

“This puts the provision of key prevention services delivered by Help2Change at risk.

“Help2Change delivers the NHS Health Check (which is statutory) as well as a range of non-statutory prevention services including the Help2Quit stop smoking service.

“Help2Change has already committed to savings totalling £1.212m, and has put forward additional proposals that if accepted would reduce its total budget to £0.623m per annum by 2021-22 (equivalent to the cost of the statutory NHS Health Check), making a further saving of £0.794m.

“The only alternative means for Help2Change to deliver this level of savings would be to end provision of all non-statutory services, including Help2Quit.

“It is recommended that members note that stopping the Help2Quit service would pose a significant risk to population health, widen health inequalities and increase overall social care costs.

Help2Quit is a stop smoking service delivered by the council’s Help2Change team.

It treated 2,836 clients in 2017-18, achieving a 46 per cent quit rate against the national target of 35 per cent.

Dr Lewis continued: “There are 39,000 smokers recorded on GP registers in Shropshire. Smokers using Help2Quit are four times more likely to be successful than if they try to quit alone.

“Help2Quit is a key intervention following the NHS Health Check. Also, every pregnant smoker in Shropshire is automatically referred to the HASC.”

He added: “The loss of Help2Quit would have a significant adverse impact on population health, increasing the number of people living with disabling illness and adding to social care costs.”