§ Mr. Barry JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales what action he has taken to discourage tobacco smoking in Wales.
§ Mr. Nicholas BennettIn Wales the campaign against smoking is carried out on many fronts. In 1987 the Government established a special authority, the Health Promotion Authority for Wales (HPAW), to promote better health in the Principality. The authority has taken on the work of Heartbeat Wales in promoting programmes to stop smoking and to stop people from ever starting.
HPAW in association with other organisations has mounted a number of national and local campaigns including National No Smoking Day in Wales, the recent launch of a passive no smoking leaflet, two mobile life education centres which feature the effect smoking has on the body and which are currently touring primary schools in Wales, and initiatives for employers, public transport operators and the retail and catering trade to provide no smoking areas. Moreover, HPAW, ASH-in-Wales (which has Government support) and Tenovus are jointly funding the forthcoming Smokebusters Cymru project, partly through additional exchequer funding made available for the project.
Recently the Department produced protocols for investment in health gain in the areas of cancer and cardiovascular diseases which acknowledge the health gain benefits of discouraging smoking. These protocols are aimed mainly at district health authorities (DHAs) and family health service authorities (FHSAs) to assist them to develop their local strategies for health. These strategies will cover local approaches to tackling heart disease, strokes, cancers, etc. and include a section on health promotion and influencing lifestyle factors detrimental to good health one of which is the incidence of smoking. Furthermore, many DHAs in Wales have a declared policy on non-smoking on NHS premises and whose health promotion units run anti-smoking programmes at local level. In the development of patient care GPs have been obliged by their terms of service to provide health promotion advice to their patients. GPs who organise and provide advice through health promotion clinics including anti-smoking clinics may be entitled to a special compensation fee.