Health Secretary urged to clarify plans for smokers to get vapes on the NHS
A Midlands based company has demanded the Government clarify proposals to start prescribing vaping kits on the NHS.
Birmingham based E-Liquids.com asked Health Secretary Sajid Javid to deliver a proposed timeline and framework for compliance for the industry and to ensure that expert opinion is sought from those with knowledge of the market.
Last year the Health Secretary announced the green light would be given to add vaping to the NHS’s smoking cessation armoury.
People who use vapes as a smoking cessation tool are more likely to give up cigarettes for good compared to other options such as nicotine patches and gums.
Current smoking cessation tools cost the NHS about £300 per person and they are able to help roughly five per cent of those people to quit for good.
E-Liquids.com’s own research from their Switch2Vaping campaign, which coincided with the national Stoptober campaign, saw 57 per cent of people who completed the month-long programme, quit smoking for good.
The programme, saw smokers who wanted to quit given free vapes and refills for a month at a cost of roughly £100 per participant, which was shouldered by the company themselves to prove that vaping worked.
Now the firm is pushing for Mr Javid and his newly appointed 'Vaping Tzar', Javeed Khan, to formalise the process and reach out for help guiding the new compliance framework.
E-liquids employs over 40 people in the Midlands. Its general manager, Jane Buxton, said: "We are looking forward to guidance and input into the prescription vape proposals and hope that companies such as ourselves are consulted as to best practice and compliance.
"We have vast experience within the team of how things can operate safely and cost effectively, our own smoking cessation programme shows that we can achieve great efficacy at a fraction of the cost of other programmes so we ask that any decisions are made with the best available information."
She added: "Since the announcement of the proposed programme, there has been very little in the way of direction or communication so we ask that we can now sit down with the Government and begin to formulate a plan which works for all stakeholders."
