Report calls for e-cigarettes to be prescribed on the NHS

Public Health England (PHE) said much of the public wrongly believes that e-cigarettes carry health risks in the same way cigarettes do.

Howver they say this is not the case and they want to see smokers taking up the electronic devices to reduce the thousands of people dying from tobacco-related diseases every year.

Health experts said that although GPs and stop smoking services are not able to prescribe or recommend e-cigarettes as none of the products on the market are licensed for medicinal purposes, they hope the MHRA (Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) will do so soon.

They also said there is no evidence so far that e-cigarettes are acting as a route into smoking for children or non-smokers, with almost all the 2.6 million adults using them in Britain either current or ex-smokers.

Most of the people using the e-cigarette devices are doing so to either help them quit or stop returning to tobacco.

While it is hard to quantify how many lives could be saved by people switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes, they said around 80,000 deaths a year in England are caused by smoking - the greatest cause of preventable deaths.

Prof Ann McNeill, of King’s College London and an independent author of the review, said e-cigarettes could be a “game changer in public health”.

The PHE-commissioned review said smoking amongst both adults and youths continues to decline and e-cigarette use may be contributing to this.

But it said that as the evidence surrounding their safety has grown, distrust of the devices has increased amongst the public.

City of York Council’s executive member for adult social care and health Councillor Carol Runciman said: “City of York Council welcomes Public Health England’s report, “E-cigarettes: an evidence update”, which provides a useful evidence base to inform our local planning for services to support smokers across the city who wish to quit. It is important that smokers are given clear messages about the relative benefits of using e-cigarettes as an alternative to smoking so that they can make an informed choice. However we still have concerns about the impact on the population of e-cigarettes and support the need for better regulation and restrictions on advertising, particularly to young people.

“Smoking remains England’s number one killer and the best thing a smoker can do is stop smoking completely.”