Smokers could be offered vapes to tackle cigarette use in Peterborough

Smokers could be offered vapes to help them quit cigarettes as part of a trial being proposed in Peterborough.

The one-year pilot program would see smokers being given vapes as part of a structured attempt to give up smoking in order to test whether it helps improve success rates.

Vapes, which contain nicotine but not tar or tobacco, are “probably less harmful than cigarettes”, a report recommending the trial produced by Peterborough City Council (PCC) and the region’s Integrated Care Board (ICB) says.

There is “robust short- and medium-term evidence” that people who vape are exposed to fewer harmful substances than people who smoke, it continues, while acknowledging the “relatively short timeframe for any evidence about their long-term use”.

Vapes contain toxins and carcinogens, it adds, but at lower levels than cigarettes, and have been shown to be effective in helping people give up smoking.

PCC and the ICB propose in the report that, alongside local authorities in Cambridgeshire, they should apply for funding for the pilot from central Government when it becomes available under its “swap to stop” initiative, highlighting in their application the “very high rates [of smoking] in Fenland along with high numbers of homeless in Cambridge City and Peterborough”.

Homelessness and unemployment are linked to higher rates of smoking, the report explains.

Children and teenagers to be discouraged from vaping

But while vaping may be encouraged among adult smokers in future, it will be more heavily discouraged among children and teenagers.

PCC and the ICB also propose to expand the region’s school-based programmes that address smoking and vaping – which is becoming more prevalent.

Across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, nine per cent of 11 to 17 year-olds say they’ve tried smoking, while the figure for vaping is 21 per cent.

The authorities' report also suggests increasing spot checks on shops selling vapes and cigarettes in order to crack down on those that sell the products to young people and those whose products don’t meet minimum safety requirements.

Last year, just nine shops in Peterborough were checked by the council’s trading standards service, the report says, with faults being found at four of them.

Local authorities trying to tackle 'downward trend' in quitters

The suggestions come as PCC, alongside other councils and health providers in the region, discuss ways to reduce smoking rates after a “downward trend in quitters”, starting in around 2016/17.

Despite this trend, numbers of smokers in Peterborough have remained relatively stable – currently around 14 per cent – but the percentage has increased in Fenland to 29 per cent; the highest rate in the country.

Smoking costs Peterborough £72.5m per year, the report says, spread across health and social care services as well as lost productivity.

It costs Cambridgeshire £183.5m per year.

The report, and its suggestions, will be discussed by PCC’s health scrutiny committee on Tuesday (11th July) before any of the suggestions outlined are implemented.