Tobacco Control Strategy 2024 to 2029

Details of each of the themes are set out below.

Our goal is to secure the best start in life for every child in Buckinghamshire. Emphasising the importance of a smokefree environment during their upbringing.

• Reduce the prevalence of smoking during pregnancy, through continuing to offer a robust and effective pathway for both women and their partners for identification, referral, and support to stop smoking.
  
• Heighten awareness among young people about tobacco health risks and persist in efforts to curb the availability, appeal, and affordability of tobacco for the young people.
  
• Advocate for smokefree environments, including play parks, school gates, and sport sidelines.
  
• Prevent young people starting smoking through the de-normalisation of smoking in adults.
  
• Reduce vaping among youth through reducing the appeal and accessibility.
  
• Implement evidence-based prevention programmes in schools, rooted in behavioural science for children and young people.
  
• Encourage planning departments to design features which mitigate the presence of second-hand smoke, such as smokefree/vapefree signage.

This theme focuses on a whole-system approach to supporting smokers to quit. As smokers experience a greater incidence of poor health and disease, the health and care system will already be regularly engaging with them. We must seize these opportunities and Make Every Contact Count (MECC).

Prioritising support for individuals to quit, the strategy underscores the importance of accessible and effective stop smoking services. This involves providing high-quality assistance, incorporating nicotine replacement therapies and behavioural interventions to enhance smokers’ chances of success. Evidence-based stop smoking services can significantly improve quit success rates, up to three times higher than attempting to quit alone64.

Buckinghamshire Council currently commissions a local stop smoking service (Be Healthy Bucks) to help smokers to quit with the use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and behavioural support.

• Sustain an accessible, evidence-based stop smoking service for both young people and adults.
  
• Promote smokefree environments in organisations and workplaces, offering support for staff to quit smoking.
  
• Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust (BHT) and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust (OHFT) will continue to implement the tobacco dependency commitments in the NHS Long Term Plan by supporting local referral pathways for smokers (including referrals to local pharmacies).
  
• Encourage smokers using, visiting, or working in the NHS to quit, including comprehensive smokefree policies.
  
• Encourage smoking cessation or the transition to vaping using national and local campaigns, such as Stoptober.
  
• Explore additional opportunities to shield both adults and children from the harm of second-hand smoke.
  
• Collaborate with Trading Standards to ensure shisha establishments adhere to regulations.
  
• Ensure that Primary Care identify and refer smokers to stop smoking support, including those on surgery waiting lists

By directing tobacco control interventions to communities with higher smoking rates and lower socioeconomic status, the goal is to diminish differences in smoking prevalence throughout Buckinghamshire.

• Provide free support to quit smoking for populations with elevated prevalence, such as LGBT communities or routine and manual workers.
  
• Tailor stop smoking services to cater to the specific needs of key populations.
  
• Reduce the prevalence of smoking amongst people with mental health conditions and learning disabilities, offer targeted interventions and ensure mental health trusts implement the tobacco dependency commitments in the NHS Long Term Plan.
  
• Deliver mass media campaigns to advocate stopping smoking, raising awareness of harms.
  
• Support smokers with long-term conditions (LTC) in their efforts to quit.
  
• Promoting and offering Make Every Contact Count (MECC) training to key organisations.

All tobacco products sold in the UK are subject to excise duty, and illegal tobacco refers to any cigarettes or tobacco sold without paying this duty. Organised crime groups dominate the illegal tobacco market, often engaging in other criminal activities like drug smuggling or people trafficking. This illicit trade undermines tobacco control efforts, providing a readily available source of cheap tobacco products.

Illegal tobacco, sold at about half the price of legal alternatives, attracts some smokers but enables the initiation of smoking in children. In 2021, we launched a campaign highlighting the harms of illegal tobacco use and its broader impact on communities, supported by an illegal tobacco roadshow for community engagement.

The Buckinghamshire and Surrey Trading Standards team enforces legislation related to the sales of age-restricted products, including tobacco and vaping items. Retailers receive guidance on avoiding illegal sales, and the department employs various methods, including test purchasing, to ensure compliance

• Expand outreach of the illegal tobacco campaign to communities with high rates of illegal tobacco use.
  
• Collaborate with Trading Standards and the police to identify illegal cigarettes and unsafe products, supporting partner enforcement actions to enhance safety.
• Increase the reporting of intelligence on underage sales and illegal tobacco/vape activities.
  
• Encourage residents to report illegal tobacco and illegal vape activities.
  
• Increase the number of underage sales testing operations, supported by a dedicated Trading Standards officer.
  
• Ensure effective prosecutions are taken in appropriate cases based on intelligence received.
  
• Promote safety messages regarding the safe operation of shisha establishments and advocate for accurate identification and recording of shisha premises.