Stricter outdoor smoking rules being considered in the UK

London: Smoking in the UK in 2022 was found to be at its lowest level since 2011. Credit: shisu_ka via Shutterstock.

According to the UK’s parliament, smoking is the leading cause of preventable illness and death and is responsible for approximately 80,000 deaths per year in the UK.

The UK’s latest prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed that the government is looking at implementing tougher rules on outdoor smoking in order to reduce the number of preventable deaths linked to smoking and thus limit the burden that smoking has on the country’s National Health Service (NHS).

While the details of these new proposals remain unclear, smoking could soon be prohibited in pub gardens, outdoor restaurants, parks, and outside hospitals and sports grounds.

Over the past 18 years, various UK governments have put several laws in place to reduce the prevalence of smoking in the UK.

These laws have included banning smoking in the workplace and other public indoor places, prohibiting the sale of tobacco to anyone under the age of 18, banning smoking in a car with people under the age of 18 present, and changing the minimum cigarette pack size to 20 cigarettes.

According to a 2022 adult smoking habits survey, which was published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 12.9% of adults in the UK smoked.

Leading data and analytics company GlobalData‘s epidemiologists anticipate that as more measures are put in place to prohibit smoking in public spaces, the prevalence will decline further.

A reduction in smoking prevalence will decrease the prevalence of smoking-related diseases such as lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and heart disease, which will in turn reduce the strain on the NHS.

According to the ONS, in 2022, those aged 25-34 years had the highest proportion of smokers in the UK (16.3%), and those 65 and older had the lowest (8.3%).

A study by Kale and colleagues, which was published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence in July 2024, analysed data from the Smoking Toolkit Study (a nationally representative cross-sectional survey).

The data collected from 26,774 adults from 2014-2021 revealed that 34% of smokers identified as social smokers.

Adults who identified as social smokers were more likely to want to quit smoking than nonsocial smokers.

Social smoking is likely to occur in outdoor spaces such as pub gardens, restaurants, and parks seeing that smoking is prohibited inside, so reducing the number of opportunities for social smoking by prohibiting smoking in these areas could reduce the prevalence of social smoking, and in turn reduce the number of smokers who are vulnerable to smoking-related diseases.

GlobalData epidemiologists also estimate that there will be 1,320,000 diagnosed prevalent cases of COPD in the UK in 2024, which will increase to 1,370,000 cases by 2028.

Additionally, GlobalData epidemiologists forecast that there will be 62,000 five-year diagnosed prevalent cases of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and 1,600,000 diagnosed prevalent cases of coronary artery disease (CAD) in the UK in 2024, which will increase to 69,000 cases of NSCLC and 1,620,000 cases of CAD by 2032.

However, if stricter rules on smoking outdoors are put in place, the prevalence of smoking may decrease during this period, and there may be a subsequent decrease in the prevalence of smoking-related diseases such as COPD, NSCLC, and CAD.

GlobalData epidemiologists expect that it may take several years to see the impact of the new policy once it is put in place, but over time they believe that it could take a large strain away from the NHS and reduce the number of smoking-related illnesses and deaths.