Is smoking ban closing pubs? (assignment 2 - article 2)

Lancashire pub owners fear that the smoking ban will force them to close shop.

Since the introduction of the smoking ban on 1st July 2007, it has been illegal for smokers to light up in public places and now many prefer to stay at home than go to their local boozer.

With the recent economic recession adding to troubles, many Preston pubs are forced to call it a day and leave the market for mainstream chains.

The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) say that compared to this time last year, beer sales across UK pubs are down by 8.1 percent. From July to September 104 million less pints were sold, which is 1.1 million pints a day.

The BBPA blame the figures on the credit crunch, yet pub landlords are still pointing the blame at last year’s smoking ban and the accompanying expenses.

Too expensive

Ronnie Fitzpatrick, chairman of Preston Licensed Victuallers Association and landlord of the Dog and Partridge on Friargate says that running a pub in recent times is expensive.

He said: “Now that people have to smoke outside we have to provide lights, heaters and smoking shelters.

“With booze so cheap at supermarkets people prefer to stay and home and drink and smoke.”

Biggest health improvement in decades

Many, however, are keen to shift the blame away from the smoking ban, which helped 400,000 people kick the habit last year.

Amanda Sandford of the campaigning charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) says that she feels pub sales have been falling for some time.

She said: “A lot of people blame the smoking ban for the decline in pub trade but the truth is that the pub trade was declining before the ban. I think the main factor is that alcohol is so cheap to buy from the supermarket. And I think the credit crunch has added to these troubles.

“The smoking ban was probably the single biggest improvement in the health of society in decades. Not only does it prevent the damaging effects of passive smoking but it encourages people to stop as well.

“Very few smokers actually complain about it, after all the law doesn’t say they can’t smoke, it says they can’t smoke in places where it may affect others. In fact 70 percent of smokers want to quit. All these people with freedom issues are, in a sense, hypocrites. They are not free, they are heavily addicted.”

Interestingly despite figures showing pub sales falling, there has been an increase in applications for alcohol licences over the last year. Mrs Sandford puts this down to pubs moving on,

“Pubs need to step up, need to sell food and create a more family friendly atmosphere. I think these are the pubs that will survive.”

(Picture - urbanlegend)

Preston children stop parents from smoking (assignment 2 - article 1)

Health experts say that smokers worrying that their children will take up the habit is the main incentive for them to quit.

An analysis of smokers in the Preston area has revealed that the majority of people who join the NHS Stop Smoking scheme are worried that their children will smoke too.

Results follow the release of this year’s ‘I wanna be like you’ TV campaign, which suggests that children want to be like their parents. The advert ends with a little girl pretending to smoke a crayon.

Helen McEwen of Preston’s NHS Stop Smoking service said: “A lot of people mentioned that one when they came into the service. They said children were one of the reasons they were quitting. It brought it to the forefront of their mind and they said ‘actually, this is quite serious’.”

"Scare tactics" shouldn't be the way

This campaign is one of the many "scare tactics" the NHS have used in recent years, another recent one being the "Scared" campaign. The television advertisement plays on the fact that children can be scared of their parents dying from smoking.

Miss McEwen said however that she did not feel scare tactics were the best way to tackle the issue of smoking. She said: “I don’t find scare tactics particularly useful. It depends what research you’re going from, some research shows that is useful, others do not.

“A lot of advisors go for the more motivational approach, ‘these are the benefits you’re going to get if you quit’ rather than ‘these are the scary things that happen’.”

Foster smoker ban

These aren’t the only schemes the NHS have been using to tackle the issue of children affected by smoking. Over the last year certain areas of Britain have seen smokers banned from fostering young children, unless there are “exceptional circumstances”.

The ban has taken place in select areas including Falkirk, Perth, Dundee, South Lanarkshire and even certain areas of London.

The Fostering Network have said however: “people who have the right skills and qualities to be a foster carer should not be put off from coming forward to care for older children if they have the occasional cigarette.”

The plan has been met with mixed responses from the public. Miss McEwen said: “It’s definitely beneficial in some ways because it’s making sure children aren’t in an environment of second hand smoke.

“Obviously there are some people who are extremely capable and fantastic foster parents who may happen to smoke. Maybe it should be more about looking at them and using it as a good time to quit.”

Lancashire people have also given mixed responses to the plans if they were to come here. Ben Higgins, a retired citizen from Southport said: “I think it should be taken into consideration because if people are smoking and the house is full of smoke then children are going to inhale it whether they want to or not.”

Sean Morgan, also retired, of Preston said: “As long as they’re loving parents, surely that’s the main thing isn’t it? You could get somebody who smokes but they might kick the hell out of the kids.”

(Picture - John.Karakatsanis)

HAVE YOUR SAY: What’s your view on the NHS Stop Smoking schemes? Do you think “Scare Tactics” are the best way to go about helping children who are affected by passive smoking?

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Mixed opionions over smoker foster ban.

From January 2010 it will be illegal for smokers to foster children in a north-eastern borough of London.

The ban, which was acknowledged last Tuesday, has sparked a great deal of mixed opinions.

The new ruling was passed by Redbridge Council to protect children from "the damaging effects of passive and second-hand smoke".

However, many believe that it may prevent good people from becoming foster parents.

I asked several people around the Preston area what they thought of the ban and how they would feel if it came to Preston:

Long-awaited praise for the NHS?

The NHS has been praised for meeting their targets in the quest to cut hospital waiting times down to 18 weeks.

Statistics from August show that 90 percent of patients who required admission to hospital and 95 percent of patients not needing admission, started treatment within 18 weeks of referral from their GP.

The Department of Health also met targets in cutting down the cases of the hospital bug Clostridium difficile in the last three months, with an 18% drop.

But as per usual not everything is just what the doctor ordered, the BBC note that even though the NHS average is on par with the targets, just under half of the hospitals are meeting it.

The Nurse2Nurse blog also puts a downer on the NHS, saying that although the NHS has improved by “leaps and bounds” over the past few years, 60% of hospitals are still not dealing with superbug infections effectively, and 69% of GPs do not provide patients with the easy access to appointments.

It seems to me that the NHS are doing whatever they can to get back in the Ministers’ and the public’s good books. However, as previously posted, whenever the NHS do something well, we can always find other negative points to dwell upon.

NHS 'top-up' care ban bypassed

It seems an inconsistency has arisen in our hospitals, concerning the government’s ban on allowing patients to ‘top-up’ their health care.

The ban prevents people from being NHS patients and private patients in any one ‘episode of care’. Anyone who ignores this rule will lose their NHS benefits for that particular treatment.

However, the BBC revealed that 30 hospitals across the UK are allowing the ‘top-up’ care after finding a way around the rule.

By treating the patient on the NHS as one episode of care and then treating them through a private company as another episode, they can bypass the government ruling.

This issue raises a number of points. Should hospitals be allowed to deliberately go against what the Government decrees or do they have a right to do whatever they can to aid their patients? Was the government right to impose such a ban in the first place?

Whilst researching the issue, I came across the Fade Blog, which pointed me to an article from The Times about a woman protesting the withdrawal of her free care.

Sue Bentley is taking legal action against the NHS for withdrawing her care after she used the drug Avastin, a drug which will increase her chances of fighting lung cancer but is not funded by the NHS.

The government is coming under increasing pressure to change this rule. If a patient will greatly benefit from a drug that is not funded by the NHS then surely they should be allowed to purchase it themselves without the threat of losing their benefits? As Bentley’s solicitor says: “These patients are not taking anything away from the NHS.”

And thus, just like many other people, I am completely baffled as to why our government has taken this stance on the issue. Unsurprisingly Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, was quick to state that the Conservatives are in favour of the top-up idea, and I think quite rightly so.

He said: “It is clearly wrong that any patient should be denied access to NHS treatment. Access to private treatment should not affect entitlement to NHS care.”

Now I am beginning to understand why so many hospitals in the UK have opted to bypass this rule in such a manner. Some comments left by readers of The Times article got it spot on, Mark from London said: “Our government has taken a ridiculous position on this issue - the equivalent of saying that if you pay for a tutor to provide extra lessons to your child, you lose the right to a State education!”

I am interested to see what the government will do concerning the issue. My guess is nothing. Only time will tell.

My first blog: The NHS

Rarely does a day go by when I flick through a newspaper, log on to the net or listen to the latest headlines, without hearing yet another story slating the NHS.

Just today I was browsing through the Independent and stumbled across an article by law editor Robert Verkaik detailing new laws to jail health bosses who ignore warnings to cut the risk of superbugs such as MRSA.

The article continues to quote Justice Minister Maria Eagle regarding a hypothetical hospital ignoring such warnings. She says: “Could the organisation be prosecuted and convicted? The answer is ‘possibly’.”

I use this example because I believe it perfectly illustrates the ongoing debate regarding our health service. We’re in a constant state of hearing how our hospitals are rubbish, how they are failing to effectively treat patients, how they are failing to accommodate patients and how it’s more hygienic to lick your toilet seat than it is to stay overnight at one.

So my question is this: Is the NHS really as bad as it’s made out to be in the press or are we just overlooking all the good points and focussing solely on the bad points?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to suggest that MRSA is a trivial subject and we should be writing about how Mr Smith’s heart condition is stable once more, I’m just saying we rarely actually hear any praise for the NHS.

Even when the NHS meets targets, there are no congratulations in order, just a list of other things that desperately need sorting out.

The BBC news website today posted an article concerning hospitals over-diluting their cleaning products, which instead of killing the germs, is making them immune to the chemicals. This is obviously an issue of great concern but I can’t help but feel a little bit sorry for the NHS, which seems to be fighting a losing battle in the sense that even when it’s trying to clean itself up, it can’t get it quite right.

The article went on to say: “The NHS has recently met a target for the reduction of MRSA cases, but the rise of antibiotic resistance remains a problem.”

This perfectly exemplifies my previous point, whenever the NHS meets the target; it’s showered with yet another problem.

What I’m really getting at here is the way we look at our health service is greatly instilled by media coverage. Is the NHS really as bad as the press make it out to be or are we focussing on all the bad points and none of the good ones? Has the NHS brought this on itself? Is the reason it has so many problems due to all the things it has done wrong in the past or just incredibly bad luck?

I don’t know but I’m certainly, like everyone else, a bit concerned with the state of the health service at the moment. Will it ever sort itself out? I’m going to be paying close attention to the matter over the next year or so. Maybe my questions will be answered? In the meantime, what do you think?