PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY UK

Smoke -Tobacco Free Policy in England

Smoke -Tobacco Free Policy in England

Introduction

Background

The history of smoking dates as early as 5000 B.C and has been reported all over the world in many different cultures. Nevertheless it was only until the mid-17th century that smoking was introduced at a massive scale to the world wide community - till the start of the 19th century it had become more of a trend or fashion that half the world followed. It was only a century later during the 1900s that the hazards of smoking were fully recognized (www.ash.org.uk). Today, it is termed as one of the biggest public health concern taken into account as health disaster, worldwide this public health concern and its effects are compared to that of terrorism (GOV. UK, 2013). Smoking can kill more than a billion people all over the world in the current century, unless all the governments and governing bodies in the world take prevent measures and put an end to the booming profits earned by the tobacco industry.

Smoking causes more deaths that can be prevented nearly 80,000 people were killed in 2011 in England. This also leaves back an impact of the families of the smokers, every year approximately 9, 500 patients admitted in the UK hospitals are children reported with the problems due to passive smoking (GOV. UK, 2013). Ban on smoking in England, the legislation has made smoke illegal at all work place which has poor ventilation, and it was put in force on 1st July, 2013 as a part of Heath Act 2006. On 16th November 2004, a public health paper was proposed which documented that smoking was banned at all the public places in England and Wales (O'Connell, 2013). Restrictions on smoking were initiated along with the complete ban on smoking in government localities and NHS in 2006, as well as all enclosed places open to public by the end of 2007, restaurants, bars, pubs exclusive of those not serving the food by 2008 (McNeill, 2005, p. 1).

After external challenge and debates within the Cabinet on 26 October 2005, the government assured that there would be no changes in this plan. By summer 2007, all the workplaces, offices, buildings, bars, pubs, restaurants, selling food outlets would come under the ban policy. The implementation faced a widespread criticism from all sides including members of parliament who threatened to upset the bill by any means (BBC News, 2005).

Many people who were representative of licensed trade informed the government that a complete ban will only work, more than 90 members of the parliament signed the petition and over 100 signed the free vote on the dispute. It was also reported that on 24th November, Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson relinquish the partial ban and moved towards the implementation of a total ban (Butler, 2009). The government also issued the results of the public opinion as well as Cancer Research UK, which claimed that under the Freedom of Information Act, 9 out of 10 votes were ...