Make e-cigarettes available on prescription, says PHE

Public Health England (PHE) has said that e-cigarettes should be available on prescription to help continue the work undertaken to stop people smoking.

According to the agency’s latest evidence, at least 20,000 people a year are quitting smoking with the help of e-cigarettes, leading to the belief that the quitting rate would increase if they were available on prescription. The same report also claims that, as an alternative, e-cigarettes are at least 95 per cent less harmful than smoking.

PHE also reported that approximately 40 per cent of smokers have not even tried an e-cigarette and that many thousands of smokers incorrectly believe that vaping is as harmful as smoking. Because of that ‘public misunderstanding’, the use of e-cigarettes in the UK has plateaued over the last few years at just under three million.

John Newton, director for Health Improvement at PHE, said: “Every minute someone is admitted to hospital from smoking, with around 79,000 deaths a year in England alone. Our new review reinforces the finding that vaping is a fraction of the risk of smoking, at least 95 per cent less harmful, and of negligible risk to bystanders. Yet over half of smokers either falsely believe that vaping is as harmful as smoking or just don’t know. It would be tragic if thousands of smokers who could quit with the help of an e-cigarette are being put off due to false fears about their safety.”