The government “should consider implementing a levy on tobacco companies” to fund a “national walk-in stop smoking service” in community pharmacies, an AstraZeneca report has recommended.
Published last week, an AstraZeneca “national action plan for tackling cardiovascular disease” policy paper said this levy would accelerate progress towards a “smokefree generation” and “ease pressure on public finances”.
Read more: Updated smoking cessation service spec released
“The government should help people stop smoking through a ‘polluter pays’ levy on tobacco companies which could raise an estimated £700 million in its first year,” it said.
The biopharmaceutical business stressed that this figure would be “enough to fund tobacco control and smoking cessation programmes with money to spare”.
The paper, which had input from Community Pharmacy England (CPE), the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) and the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA), also called on the government to build on the success of the community pharmacy hypertension case finding service.
Scale up
Community pharmacy has “already delivered significant benefits” through this service, but there is “scope to go further”, it said.
“If the service was scaled up through expanded eligibility criteria, with GPs supported to signpost patients to pharmacies for hypertension checks, there is the potential for 15 million blood pressure screenings to be provided over five years,” it added.
AstraZeneca also acknowledged that this year “all pharmacists will be independent prescribers upon registration with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)”.
Read more: Pharmacy stop-smoking service expands to ‘non-registered’ staff
Coupled with “the government’s ambition to introduce a community pharmacy prescribing service”, this presents an opportunity to “join up screening, the initiation of treatment and ongoing support”, it said.
And it added that this would allow patients to “benefit from the clinical expertise of pharmacists to manage their condition well”.
Read more: ‘Don’t sign up!’: LPC chief advises against new smoking service over fees and safety concerns
“This approach, in line with the 10-year health plan’s ambition for community pharmacy to play a bigger role in screening for long-term conditions, could also benefit other long-term conditions, including diabetes and cholesterol,” the report said.
The policy paper called for the government to “commit to reducing cardiovascular disease incidence by 20%”, stressing that “targets should be integrated into guidance to the NHS, with progress reported upon in an annual report laid before parliament”.
Read more: MPs: Pharmacists must not be ‘criminalised’ over vapes as quit aid
It comes after CPE unveiled draft versions of the updated smoking cessation service specification in December.
This decision to expand the pharmacy smoking cessation service was announced last March to “enable better use of skill mix” with delivery of “parts” of the service by “registered and non-registered pharmacy staff”, the government said.
CPE set out at the time that the changes would “require developments to IT systems”, adding that the date they will apply from “will be announced in due course”.
