Decision

To approve the award
of national ringfenced additional grant funding from the Department
of Health and Social Care to the Wirral Stop Smoking Service
Provider, ABL Health Ltd, totalling £324,728.59 for delivery
of enhanced stop smoking support during the current financial year,
April 2024 to March 2025.

Reasons for the decision

The extra stop smoking
grant funding is ringfenced for local authority led stop smoking
services and support, and will be used to invest in enhancing
Wirral Council’s commissioned stop smoking service, ABL, and
wider system support.
This is in addition to, and whilst maintaining existing spend on
this service and support from the ringfenced Public Health Grant.
To receive the funding, local authorities must maintain existing
spend on stop smoking services. The funding will not replace
other/existing programmes delivered within the NHS Long Term
Plan.
The funding will:
• Build additional capacity to deliver expanded local stop
smoking service, ABL, and wider system support;
• Build demand for local stop smoking service, ABL, and wider
system support; and
• Deliver increases in the number of people setting a quit
date and 4 week quit outcomes, reporting outcomes in the Stop
Smoking Services Collection.

Alternative options considered

The grant will be
ring-fenced for use on local stop smoking services and support. It
is necessary to accept the grant to commission and upscale local
offers and generate demand for stop smoking support over time and
delivering quits needed to meet the ambition of being smokefree by
2030 (prevalence of 5% or less).