Have your say in the Independent Tobacco Review

With the UK Government’s target of England being Smokefree by 2030, they have announced that Javed Khan OBE will be leading an independent review on smoking and has asked for smokers, non-smokers, vapers and anyone going through a quit smoking attempt to come forward and share their views and success stories.

Javed Khan OBE aims to use all of these views and success stories to help further inform the review with the overall goal of helping to improve public health.

The Independent Tobacco Review

The review’s aim is to provide independent and evidence-based advice that will furthermore inform the government’s approach to tacking health disparities associated with tobacco use and subsequently help towards achieving improved public health and a target of Smokefree by 2030.

With England having around 6 million smokers, an all-time-low with smoking rates declining, action needs to be taken to ensure that communities that are classed at being higher risk of health disparities associated with tobacco use are supported even more than ever.  

The former CEO of Barnardo’s, the children’s charity, Javed Khan OBE has an extensive history in battling health inequalities and is leading the independent review into tobacco control.

‘’I am very pleased to be leading this review into such an important area of public health. My independent findings will help highlight key interventions which can help the government achieve its ambitions to be smoke-free by 2030 and tackle health disparities.- Javed Khan OBE

It will also help inform the Government decide on the most impactful interventions to reduce the update of smoking and subsequently support smoking cessation, which is will then assess all the options to be put forward into the new Tobacco Control Plan which is planned to be published later this year.

‘’The pandemic has shown the resilience of the British public and brought communities together to look after each other in the most challenging times. But it has also exposed chasms in our society - particularly in health.’’- Sajid Javid, UK Secretary of State for Health & Social Care

How to share your opinion

If you are a smoker, ex-smoker, vape or trying to make a quit attempt, you can share your views with the Independent Tobacco Review by either emailing TobaccoIndependentReview@dhsc.go.uk or by using the hashtag #TobaccoIndependentReview.

Here are the questions the review wants to hear answers to:

• How do we stop people, especially children and young people, from starting smoking in the first place?
• Have you quit smoking for good? What worked? What do you think could work better?
• Changing behaviour is key. What changed your mindset on smoking? Have you been persuaded by what you see in the media?
• What is your view on e-cigarettes? We know they are effective at helping people to quit smoking. How can we stop children and non-smokers from using them?
• Have you ever used a Stop Smoking Service to quit smoking? Or spoken to your GP about it? What was your experience?

With this incredible opportunity you can share your opinion and views to support vaping, e-cigarettes and their use in smoking cessation and furthermore have an impact on the future of public health.

Sources
• Gov.Uk (04/02/2022)
• Question-statements.parliament.uk (04/02/2022)