A health and wellbeing service is set to be scrapped in spite of public support for keeping it.
Members of Lincolnshire County Council’s executive agreed to scrap the Integrated Lifestyle Service (ILS) – also known as One You Lincolnshire – and to replace this with a stand-alone smoking cessation service and a falls prevention programme, writes Local Democracy Reporter Oliver Castle.
The ILS currently provides support for adults to lose weight, quit smoking and reduce their alcohol consumption.
At a meeting on Tuesday, February 3, councillors heard that this will be decommissioned from April 1 2027.
The money will instead be spent on children’s services, including Best Start which offers support for families from pregnancy to age five through children’s centres and family hubs.
Coun Steve Clegg said: “I acknowledge that while the ILS has delivered positive outcomes, members also understood that child-focused preventative schemes, such as Best Start, particularly concentrating on those vital first few years, was extremely important.
“The proposals shift the investment to prevention at source – our children – to create a healthier future workforce and to reduce long-term costs.
“Now I believe members understand the reasons for continuing to support smoking cessation and that there will continue to be a falls prevention (balance and stability) service.”
This comes despite a public consultation which was carried out by the county council which showed that the majority of people supported the ILS being maintained in its current form.
Out of a total of 750 responses, 60 per cent of people said they supported the current service, while 29 per cent supported a partial decommissioning of the service and 11 per cent supported it being fully scrapped.
But Coun Clegg said that he has listened to feedback from the public and some councillors’ concerns.
“I think it’s important to stress that it was a consultation and not a referendum,” he said. “It’s a means of gathering views which I weighed up carefully along with the opinions of others.
“Although a fair proportion of those that responded to consultation favoured retaining the ILS, it also highlighted support from investing in young people and families.”
Coun Natalie Oliver portfolio holder for children’s services, said she supported the additional funding for children’s services.
She added: “We know that the first 1000 days from conception to reception is in shaping lifelong health, education and wellbeing.
“Prioritising this period is essential in reducing inequalities and improving longer-term outcomes.
“I’m extremely relieved to see that not only the public but my fellow executive and the committee understand just how important early intervention is in terms of breaking that intergenerational cycle of poor health and the only way to do that is to invest in children’s lives.”
But Coun Michael Cheyne questioned whether vaping should be included as part of the county council’s smoking prevention scheme.
He said: “I think it’s a really good initiative. It has to be welcomed not just by us but by the public in general.
“I think stopping smoking has got to be a beneficial outcome for the country if this could be rolled out.
“However, what I would ask is whether this also includes vapes with the particulate and water vapour, which isn’t good for the lungs. I would think the initiative should challenge vapes as well?”
But Andy Fox, a public health consultant at the county council, said that helping people to quit smoking delivered better value for money for the county council.
He added: “We know vapes are also addictive. Just to be clear – they are. They’ve also got nicotine in them so they do cause addiction.
“You’re right. There is some evidence that they are potentially harmful, but just to be clear, in terms of value for money for the public pound, we don’t have any evidence that it causes long-term health effects really at the moment – not at a significant scale.
“Whereas with smoking cigarettes, because you’re burning something, you’re getting actual smoke in your lungs, those products of combustion are extremely carcinogenic and they cause COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease).
“They also cause cancer. Vapes don’t do that. So in terms of value for the public pound, it’s very clear that we get lots of value for money if we target people smoking cigarettes.”
Mr Fox added that vapes do contain nicotine and are addictive. He said that there was “no reason” for people to use them, except to help them to quit smoking.
The scheme had previously been praised as saving the health service £4 for every £1 spent.
At a previous scrutiny meeting Coun Susan Woolley asked why some of the £8m reserves could not have been used to cover the £1m cost of the cut.
“I’m struggling to see why we’re moving money into children’s service when children’s have their own funding arrangements,” she said before going on to say the county ‘imports’ people from other parts of the country of a more advanced age.
