Health written question – answered at on 3 September 2012.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps the Government are taking to assist local authorities in preparing to take over responsibility for commissioning smoking cessation services.
In ‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People: Update and way forward’, published in July 2011, the Government confirmed that the new responsibilities for upper tier and unitary local authorities would include tobacco control, including smoking cessation services. It will be for local authorities, alongside their health and wellbeing board partners, to determine what investment they wish to make in smoking cessation, based on the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment and the joint health and wellbeing strategy. However, the Public Health Outcomes Framework, to which local authorities will have to have regard, contains three indicators on smoking prevalence, with respect to adults, pregnant women, and young people.
The Department and, from April 2013, Public Health England, will continue to support local authorities to help them to develop and implement comprehensive evidence-based tobacco control policies, which should include the provision of smoking cessation services.
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