Heart attack admissions fall

Fewer hospitalised in England after smoking ban

A team of researchers in Bath have suggested that the smoking ban is responsible for the 1,200 fewer hospital admissions for heart attacks in England in the year after July 2007, when the smoking ban came into effect. The researchers said that even a modest drop in the number of hospital admissions from smoking-related heart attacks would have ‘important public health benefits’.

The London Health Observatory carried out separate research on the basis of the previous study’s figures, that suggested that the NHS saved £8.4m in the first year after the ban on smoking in public indoor spaces was introduced in England. One theory of why there has already been an observable change in smoking-related heart attacks is that non-smokers’ exposure to smoke has the same effect on the heart as if they were light smokers, and can cause acute coronary problems. This means that at least some of the impact of a smoking ban should become apparent quite quickly. Professor John Britton of the Royal College of Physicians said the research demonstrated ‘Once again the importance of preventing passive smoking.’ He also said that further action should be taken by the government to ‘close the remaining loopholes in the existing smoking laws, and to act to prevent the continued exposure of children to passive smoking in the home’.

Source: BBC News, 9 June 2010.

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