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Written question asked by Keith Vaz (Labour) on Monday, 4 July 2011, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 7 July 2011. It was answered by Anne Milton (Conservative) on Thursday, 7 July 2011 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Pharmacy: Smoking

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health with reference to his Department's White Paper, Healthy Lives, Healthy People, what steps his Department has taken to strengthen its partnership working with pharmacies to promote effective smoking cessation routes.
Answer

Stop smoking services are the most common locally commissioned service under the community pharmacy contractual framework. For example, in 2009-10, 5,612 stop smoking services were provided locally by community pharmacies. Recent initiatives to improve the impact of pharmacies in their smoking cessation activities include:The Department worked closely with pharmacy partners across England between January and March 2011 to pilot a new approach to distributing the NHS Quit Kit—a box of practical tools and support that have been developed to help smokers quit for good.Through the Department and the Cabinet Office Behaviour Change Unit, the Government are collaborating with Boots to pilot and assess the use of behavioural insights alongside improvement to the quality and length of services provided within the NHS-commissioned stop smoking service provided by Boots.The results will help inform how publicly-commissioned pharmacy local stop smoking services providers can best develop their service offer to help smokers to quit in the future.In early 2009, the Department commissioned Portsmouth Primary Care Trust (PCT) to develop an evidence-based commissioning framework based on public health need for healthy living pharmacies (HLPs). By May 2011, seven out of 38 pharmacies in Portsmouth have been awarded HLP status. These pharmacies have to demonstrate consistent, high-quality delivery of a range of services such as stopping smoking, weight management, emergency hormonal contraception, Chlamydia screening, advice on alcohol and reviews of the use of their medicines. Interim results indicate that community pharmacies have delivered a total of 664 smoking quits, which exceeds the PCTs annual target of 480 by 38%.The Department has commissioned the provision of an evidence-based training and assessment programme from the NHS Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training that is freely available to pharmacists and their teams, and other health care professionals, and which leads to significant improvements in the support offered to smokers wanting to quit.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
64350; 530 c1350-1W
Session
2010-12
Subjects
Pharmacy Smoking
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk