Pregnant woman to be given 400.00 from the NHS to stop smoking
 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...-quit-smoking/

Pregnant women are to be offered up to £400 of shopping vouchers to quit smoking, under new rules for the NHS.

Health Chiefs said the measure was proved to be "both effective and cost effective".

The scheme will be policed using biochemical tests to check whether participants have quit.

However, under the new guidance from The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), the vouchers should be given out anyway when testing is too difficult due to the impact of Covid-19.

The scheme has already been tried in some areas, but its adoption by Nice obliges NHS services to consider offering it across the board.

The Royal College of Midwives has previously questioned schemes to incentivise behaviour change through monetary reward.

The guidance, which kicks in when women are referred to an NHS Stop Smoking Service or those run by bodies such as councils, public health teams and charities, said: "Evidence from the UK showed that schemes in which a maximum of around £400 could be gained in vouchers staggered over time (with reductions for each relapse made) were effective and cost effective."


It has been proven in Clinical Trials to improve the health of the baby and saves NHS money in the long run as less babies end up in the special care baby unit

i didn't think there were many smokers anymore

Got to love a straight-up bribe :joker:.

If it's been proven to save money for the NHS in the long run though then :shrug:. Can't really argue with it. A shame that people need bribed though.

They're all dirty Vapers these days. Wonder if it applies to that? Probably not if it's tobacco that's the problem rather than nicotine itself.

tbh any pregnant woman found to be smoking needs an abortion and sterilisation. clearly not fit to be a parent.

Sadly cigarettes are the least of the problem. The number of babies born with an opiate addiction because the mother was taking heroin in pregnancy is actually shocking. Walk into any maternity ward in any hospital in the UK, at any time, and you're likely to find at least one example.

When I was having my son and was at Salford Royal for my booking in appointment, the midwife asked me how many I smoked a day - when I said none, I didn't smoke...she looked genuinely shocked. That's Salford for you. :laugh:

My wife had a GP who absolutely REFUSED to believe she wasn't a smoker, because she had been to visit her grandad before the appointment and absolutely stank head to toe of cigarette smoke. She was only in his house for 5 minutes, but that place had cigarette smell baked into the brickwork :joker:. When we used to visit with the kids we'd have to wash what they were wearing twice afterwards because the smell would still be there after the first wash :umm2:.

does anyone remember the smoking carriage in trains or the back 3 rows of a plane, where you didnt need to light a cigarette, you just needed to breathe :laugh:

Yeah, its crazy to think not that long ago you could smoke upstairs on the bus - we all used to have a crafty cig on the way to school :laugh: and on planes and trains.

It seems alien now to think that people used to smoke inside pubs and restaurants. You could never beat getting your main course as the table next to you all lit up :yuk:

and smoking on the tube too

that was just crazy. I remember people smoking on the wooden platforms and escalators and thought, this is mental, and then kings cross happened

I do....imagine having it now. I am an occassional smoker but I couldnt sit in a restaurant/pub/Aircraft with smoking going on around me...

As for this incentive...it may save the NHS money in the long run but the thought of a selfish pregnant woman being gifted with vouchers because she puts her needs in front of damaging the health of her unborn baby does not sit right with me...

I'm with Rustic on this one.

If a woman can't give up cigarettes for the sake of her baby, who's going to make sure she doesn't take the cash then continue smoking?

I’m sorry, but is this good use of tax payers money?

If you want to have a baby then you bloody make that decision to stop. Having a baby should be enough

I agree. They have tried to account for it by saying the vouchers will be given in increments and the women tested and amounts reduced if they are tested but there will be ways around it.

If a baby is not a big enough incentive, I doubt a bit of cash will be :sad:

This will be taken advantage of so easily.

Basically the first thing the NHS is doing from conception, is removing the mothers responsibility for caring for the baby, which seems mighty odd to me. It's for the mother to take the right choices for her baby as these choices will apply through it's childhood and beyond

Pregnant woman to be given 400.00 from the NHS to stop smoking
 

It has been tested and found the reduce the financial strain on the NHS. Neonatal ICU stays cost upwards of 5 figures. In this case, that’s really all that matters, and the idea that the NHS should avoid efficient money saving measures “because of some vague thing that may or may not result” (in truth, it just catches in people’s throats a bit) is just a bit… I dunno. Reactionary and dumb, I suppose.

No one is saying it’ll make them better parents in the long run. It’ll improve infant health and reduce NHS financial burden. That is the goal… that is what’s been measured… the fact that they still might be crappy parents isn’t really relevant.

Yes


My Taxes going to Waste

Again, this has been studied and PROVEN to save money. So it saves money. Random laypeople saying “I don’t fink it saves any money” does not supercede the actual statistical data that proves it does.

Proven by a how many that worked

And How Many Failed?

You can buy loads of cigs with £400,000


Mmmmmm.lovely cigs!