20230807 · Francesco Moscone on LBC News: Vaping study

10:36AM Aug 7, 2023

Speakers:

Martin Stanford

Francesco Moscone

Keywords:

smoking

nhs

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switch

smokers

risk

vapes

products

reduced

run

cigarettes

savings

professor

quit

healthcare expenditure

tobacco

pounds

data

diseases

reduction

Half of England's adult smokers making a switch to e-cigarettes could save the NHS a huge sum of money, more than 500 million pounds per year. That's the conclusion of a study put together by researchers at Brunel University in London. They put together data from NHS Digital, the Royal College of Physicians and the Office for National Statistics. They've had a look at the prevalence of smoking in each part of the country. Professor Francesco Moscone is with me on the line right now. Professor, welcome to our coverage.

Thank you very much.

Explain to us how the NHS might save money.

We have, as you said correctly, gathered the data. This is official data from different public resources. And we run a model where under certain scenarios where, for example, we assume that smokers will shift - for example, 50% - to reduced-risk products such as vapes and 'heat, not burn' tobacco. And under another set of assumptions, we concluded that, overall, the savings will be around half a billion pounds every year for the NHS in England. But there is also a lot of heterogeneity and lots of differences across the country. So to tell you something in terms of savings, the most savings will come from the North East and Yorkshire, but only about 148 million pounds saved in that part of the country.

And this is directly related to the prevalence of smokers - or are there other factors involved, too?

Oh, this is a kind of simulation that we ran with data. We're saying can we switch from traditional tobacco consumption? And, if this happens and we switch to these reduced-risk products, then we have really the potential to ease the burden of healthcare resources. Now I'm talking about healthcare expenditure, but this works if empirical evidence, as [we're showing?], really show that the reduced-risk products are an effective smoking cessation tool. People will quit smoking or, if it's going to work it's because it will help to mitigate the risk of diseases - of developing certain diseases. I'm talking about cancers, like oral cancer, like lung cancer, strokes, and so forth.

In saving costs, you must have added up or you must have come to a conclusion about the proportion of smokers who will either switch to vapes and stay there and continue to use those for the foreseeable future, or stop smoking altogether. And presumably if you stop smoking altogether, if we look at it from the NHS's point of view, that's a better outcome, isn't it? Because it means you're less likely to bother the service later in life.

Absolutely, that's correct. The scenario that we're that we're working on is a scenario where, for example, 50% of people who smoke switch to reduced-risk products and we're not counting those who quit smoking. So the saving would be even much more significant if some portions of these people had or will quit smoking. But, anyway, we calculated the fact that even if you don't quit smoking, and there is this switch, the analysis is projecting a 13% reduction on hospital admissions. So it's about reducing the hospital admissions. And this translates in a 12.36% reduction in health expenditure across five disease categories. And this reduction, the difference, will translate in the saving of - as we said before, and I want to be more precise - for 118 million pounds, with 131 million attributable to lung cancer savings. So the savings, to answer your question, will be even more significant if the government - through the local authorities, that's what they're doing - could really make people quit smoking. And not just traditional cigarettes; across all other products, also low-risk products. And remember that we're talking here about adults. Children are not involved in this analysis because we really don't think even to go there, even a second. Children have to be protected from smoking traditional cigarettes and also low-risk products.

Just a quick word from you, professor, about the dangers to kids with vapes, because I'm sure you're aware we've reported quite extensively on how this is now an issue. Vapes are being sold to kids. Is there any long-term health harm in that?

That's a very good question. Let me tell you that all the evidence that we have at the moment about these reduced-risk products - for example, like vapes, and 'heat, not burn' tobacco, and e-cigarettes - are evidence that comes from [short-run, unsure] studies. We know little about the long-run effects of these low-risk products. We know a lot about smoking tobacco, in terms of long-run effects. But we know little still, so we have to be cautious, we know little about the long-run effects of these reduced-risk products.

Okay, good to talk to you Professor. Thanks very much indeed. Professor Francesco Moscone, who is a business economics expert from Brunel University in London.