Agenda item

The Director of Public Health submits a report to outline the commission on the work that has been carried out over the past year to increase the number of smokers setting a quit date in Leicester, and outlines plans to meet the smoke free generation targets.

The Director of Public Health introduced an officer from Public Health to update the Commission on the smoke Free Generation programme.

·       Gave an overview of the services offered by LiveWell Leicester. Which includes the Stop Smoking Service, Healthy Lifestyles Service, Nutrition Guidance and Reducing Alcohol Service

·        Stop smoking service is a 12- week programme for people who live, work or go to a GP practice in Leicester which supports people as young as 12. Support can be face to face or over the phone and can either be one to one or group orientated. All treatment is tailored to the client. There is weekly support, check ins, a supporting app and Nicotine Replacement Therapy/ E-cigs is offered as part of the programme.

·       Extra funding was received from the government in the year 24/25 as part of the Government’s plan to create a smoke free generation. The funding was allocated based on the average smoking prevalence between the years 2021-2023. Targets are based on the number of clients who set a quit date.

·       Leicester has seen a decline in people smoking but this is still below the average nationally. Leicester 14.6% of residents smoke compared to 11.6% nationally.

·       Target for Leicester 2024/2025 was to achieve 1,531 quit attempts so to achieve this, an action plan was created which was led by the Live well team and Tobacco control team. There is now a community engagement team who support the wider live well team by providing more stop smoking appointments, attending several events and holding drop-in centres at GPs with text notification to members of the public. While the target was not met last year (1,303 attempts) there was a marked increase each quarter of the numbers using the service and people successfully quitting. 

·       The Officer from Public Health then introduced the manager of the Community Engagement Team to provide more detail on the work.  

·       The engagement work carried out during Stoptober was highlighted. During which, the engagement team went to an event each day of the month and brought back more referrals. Numerous GP partnerships have been fostered across Leicester. Practices in areas of the city with high levels of smoking such as Saffron Health, have been fantastic partners.

·       Third party partnerships with charities have also been beneficial. Community-based drop in events were held with ‘Be Inspired’ charity in Braunstone, which were valuable as Braunstone is another area with high smoking levels. Attempts to engage with businesses and get a workplace stop smoking package have been more challenging but attempts will continue to be made.

·       Work has been carried out with UHL to create an outpatient referral scheme, which works on a non-opt out basis. Work has been carried out with the lung cancer, the mini-stroke and the Emergency Departments. The team have contacted any smokers who are receiving treatment from these departments and offered them the stop smoking services which has resulted in hundreds of referrals. 

·       Case studies were shown to demonstrate the impact of the community engagement team and how they are able to adapt to more complex needs of individuals using the service. 

·       Future action plans involve ensuring that there is always cover for appointments to prevent absence causing appointments to be cancelled and increasing contact attempts for people who miss appointments. The potential of widening the outpatient referral scheme to include dentistry is being explored. Opportunities to further develop joint working initiatives with other Council departments are being probed in areas such as Social Housing, Mental Health services, Adult Social Care, the Leisure Sector and Education.

In discussions with Members, the following was noted:

·       There was a discussion surrounding the issue of quitting smoking with several Councillors sharing their own personal experiences with quitting or attempting to quit. There was further talk about some of the consequences of quitting such as weight gain with it being highlighted that this is why the stop smoking service has a nutrition wing.

·       The topic of Shisha consumption in the city was discussed as shisha is comparable (if not worse for health than smoking) and if there were any plans to tackle it with a similar scheme. The Commission was advised that the smoke free services are already open to people who smoke shisha. There is also a project being carried out alongside the University of Leicester to investigate the issue of shisha and how to tackle it.   

·       Comments were raised about the use of vapes as an alternative to smoking as vapes are still bad for your health. It was argued that while vaping is not healthy, it is healthier than smoking. So, offering vapes as a short-term solution is practical. Building on this it was stated by the officer from public health that the problem is non-smokers who have adopted vaping. There is also currently research taking place with schools to explore what would discourage vaping.

·       Further conversations delved in to the matter of smoking cessation success rates and what research is there into relapses as well as support offered. It was revealed that the cessation success rate is measured by if a person has quit for 4 weeks which is the nationally collected model. In Leicester, 55% of people who have used the scheme have quit. But Leicester Public Health follow people’s progress for longer than that as relapses do happen. There is an awareness of this fact and support in place to encourage people to try again as many times as needed. They have recently started recoding data for scheme users after a year to provide better data of the success of the scheme.

AGREED:

1.    The report was noted.