Hundreds of thousands of smokers will be given a pill that makes people more likely to quit, a move NHS bosses say will save thousands of lives.
Around 85,000 people a year in England will get the chance to use varenicline, a once-a-day tablet that experts say is as effective as vaping in helping people kick the habit.
Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of NHS England, hailed the pill as a potential ‘game changer’ in the fight against smoking and the massive health damage it causes.
The drug helps people quit by reducing their cravings for nicotine and stopping it from affecting the brain in the usual way. It has also been found to reduce the side effects that smokers may experience when they stop using tobacco, such as sleep problems and irritability.
The NHS in England will provide varenicline as part of its efforts to reduce the number of people who smoke. A decline in the number of smokers over the past twenty years means just that 11.6% of adults in England still have the habit – about 6 million people.
Health bosses hope its use will lead to 9,500 fewer smoking-related deaths over the next five years.
The drug – known at the time as Champix – was introduced in 2006 and was used by around 85,800 people a year until July 2021. It subsequently became unavailable after the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which regulates medicines, discovered impurities. in it.
That issue has now been addressed to the satisfaction of the MHRA and has recently approved a generic version of the drug, which NHS England will use. It quoted research from University College London that found it would save £1.65 in healthcare costs for every £1 it spent on the pill.
The pharmaceutical company Teva UK will supply the generic version of the drug.
Smoking experts welcomed the return of varenicline. Dr. Nicola Lindson, associate professor at the University of Oxford, said: “(It) is one of the most effective ways to quit smoking, especially when combined with behavioral support such as counselling.”
Hazel Cheeseman, the chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, welcomed the move but said the NHS must also improve help for smokers to quit.
Meanwhile, hospital bosses in England have said Labor will fail in its mission to get NHS waiting times back on track by the end of this parliament. In a survey by NHS Providers, bosses at all participating acute health trusts said they thought it unlikely or very unlikely that waiting times for routine hospital care would drop to 18 weeks by the halfway point – the maximum set out in the NHS Constitution. -2029.
One trust boss said: “The government’s main focus is on getting back to 18 weeks, which is the most difficult standard to meet. If you think there were seven million people on a waiting list, and as quickly as you take them off, we’re putting even more people on as we speak.”
The extra £22 billion the chancellor is guaranteeing to the NHS over the next two years will not be enough to solve the service’s deep-seated problems, such as lack of access to GPs, an increasingly sick population and problems with discharge of patients who are medically fit to leave. , say trust bosses.
Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “There will be progress (on the 18-week target), but we can be confident that leaders will say hand on heart that they will not meet that 18-week standard get it (within 18 weeks). 2029)? I think that is very difficult and challenging to predict.”
The survey of 171 trust leaders from 118 trusts also found there was nervousness about how the NHS in England would deal with the coming winter.