Hundreds of thousands of smokers are to be given a pill which increases people’s chances of quitting, in a move which NHS bosses believe will save thousands of lives.
About 85,000 people a year in England will be offered the chance to use varenicline, a single-use tablet that experts say is just as effective as vapes in helping people kick the habit.
Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of NHS England, hailed the pill as a potential “game changer” in the battle to tackle smoking and the huge health damage it causes.
The drug helps people quit by reducing their cravings for nicotine and ensuring that it cannot affect the brain in its usual way. It has also been found to reduce the side effects that smokers may experience when they quit using tobacco, such as sleep problems and irritability.
The NHS in England will give varenicline as part of its efforts to continue to reduce the number of people who smoke. A decline in smoking rates over the past 20 years means just that 11.6% of adults in England still have the habit – about 6 million people.
Health service bosses hope its use will lead to 9,500 fewer smoking-related deaths over the next five years.
The drug – then known as Champix – began use in 2006 and was taken by around 85,800 people a year until July 2021. It then became unavailable after the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which regulates drugs, found impurities in it.
That problem has now been addressed to the MHRA’s satisfaction and it recently approved a generic version of the drug, which NHS England will use. It quoted research by University College London which found it would save £1.65 in healthcare costs for every £1 it spent on the pill.
Pharmaceutical firm Teva UK will supply the generic version of the drug.
Smoking experts have welcomed the return of varenicline. Dr Nicola Lindson, an associate professor at Oxford University, 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 the help it gives 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 of NHS providers, the bosses of all acute health trusts that took part said they thought it was unlikely or very unlikely that waiting times for routine hospital care would return to 18 weeks – the maximum set out in the NHS constitution – by mid-2029.
One trust boss said: “The government has focused most on getting back to 18 weeks, which is the hardest standard to achieve of all. If you think, there were seven million people on a waiting list, and as fast as you take them off, we’re currently putting more people on.”
The £22bn extra guaranteed to the NHS by the chancellor over the next two years will not be enough to address the service’s deep-rooted problems, such as a lack of access to GPs, an increasingly sick population and problems discharging patients who are medically fit is to leave, overcome, says trustbase.
NHS Providers Deputy Chief Executive Saffron Cordery said: “There will be progress [on the 18-week target] but can trust leaders, hand on heart, to say that they are going to meet that 18-week standard [by 2029]? I think it is very difficult and challenging to predict.”
The survey of 171 trust leaders from 118 trusts also identified nervousness about how the NHS in England would cope with the coming winter.
