Smoking Cessation Services

See the LMC position regarding the provision of smoking cessation services and the prescribing of related medications. For the avoidance of doubt and for clarification, our position remains as it has always been.

When a practice receives a contractual offer to provide a smoking cessation service, it will review the specification and its requirements and responsibility in full.  If the practice then decides to sign up to deliver the service, it is contractually bound to deliver that service according to the specification and any prescribing of medications (as deemed appropriate).

When practices have chosen to decline the offer and do not sign up to deliver the service, commissioning arrangements will need to be put in place by the commissioner to ensure that there is equity of patient access to the service, by other means. Those alternative provider/s will equally need to provide the service against the specification, in full, including any prescribing of medications, (as deemed appropriate). It is therefore essential that any identified provider of the service has access to their own prescriber.

If a practice has not signed up to deliver the service to their patients, they are under no contractual obligation to provide any other unsourced work. This is important from two aspects, not just the funding . The first is for clinical indemnity and to ensure the practice and its clinicians are covered, they need to work under a contract; not doing so would leave them entirely exposed. Secondly, the drugs used in this service come with significant risks and require a very comprehensive work up with the patient to determine suitability before being prescribed. If this is done by someone else, the risk lies entirely with the prescriber and the risks become even more significant, so much so that clinicians will not, and should not, take these risks.

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Updated on Thursday 28 November 2024

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