Should work help you to quit fags?

SMOKERS should be given time off work to attend clinics to help them kick the habit, according to new public health guidelines.

Businesses will save money by giving employees time off without loss of pay if it gives their workers a chance of quitting, according to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice).

The improved productivity of employees who gave up smoking, and the fact they no longer needed cigarette breaks or took so much time off sick, would more than compensate for the one hour a week they needed off work to attend clinics, the organisation claimed.

Nice, the independent body responsible for providing national guidance on the good health, has issued the new guidelines for every workplace in England as they prepare to go smoke-free from July 1.

Smoking costs the NHS an estimated £1.5 billion each year, and costs industry an estimated £5 billion in lost productivity, absenteeism and fire damage.

Andrew Dillon, chief executive of Nice, said: "Going smoke free is a win-win situation for both employers and employees, and our advice sets out the best approach to making it happen.

"Our advice is based on the best evidence of which workplace approaches are effective for smokers and make business sense for employers."

Nice recommends that in addition to allowing smokers paid time off, businesses should also make information on local stop-smoking services widely available at work. Where there is enough demand, business should also consider providing at-work stop smoking clinics, it said.

But would such a system work? And what would non-smoking employees think about their smoking colleagues getting time off?

We visited one local York business to find out...

York Brewery

The boss

Tony Smith, a director of York Brewery, has a good deal of sympathy for smokers who want to quit.

He's been trying to give up for years, especially since he had a heart attack three years ago.

But despite four attempts, he has failed every time. He smokes more than 40 a day, of which he says he enjoys about three. "I've tried chewing gum, patches, a clinic, and an independent stop smoking company," he says. "Hypnotism is next!"

Tony recognises the benefits of giving up smoking. In principle he thinks giving employees time off to help them quit is a good idea. But it might cause problems for small businesses like his own, he adds.

York Brewery employs 63 people, 16 at the Toft Green brewery and the rest at its pubs.

"It would be easy to say yes, let's give them smoking employees time off. In one sense, that would be a good thing," Tony said.

"But you'd have to look at the added costs to the company of the time out to attend the clinics against the cost to the company of that person after July 1 having to go outside to find a place to smoke."

There would also be the problem of unfairness, Tony said. "Non-smokers would be thinking why should smokers get time off and be paid for it when I can't?'"

If an employee was truly determined to give up, and all he or she needed was an hour or two a week to go to a clinic, that might be worthwhile, Tony said.

"But if it was a stop-smoking course that lasted two days, or five days, and at the end of the day they still did not stop smoking, that would be a problem."

The non-smoker

HEAD of brewery Andrew Whalley has never smoked, apart from briefly as a teenager.

He doesn't believe quitting should be all that difficult. It's a bit like him and beer, he says. He enjoys beer and would find it difficult to give up, but he could do if he had to.

"And I think that if someone really wanted to give up smoking, they could give up," he said, to sniffs of derision from Tony Smith.

Andrew thinks trying to help smokers give up is a good idea. He doesn't enjoy coming to work in the bar at York Brewery when people have been smoking.

But they won't be able to do that after July 1. And he admits as a non-smoker he might find it irritating if smokers were given time off work.

"I think if people were allowed time off to quit smoking, something that they enjoy but want to get rid of, then I think non-smokers might be aggrieved."

It would be better if stop-smoking clinics could be organised in the workplace, he said. "That would be more acceptable than smokers going off-site. Because what would happen then if they didn't attend?"

Even better, he said, breaking into a grin, what about if smokers who successfully quit used some of the money they saved on cigarettes to pay the company back for the time they had had off?

The smoker

WILL Roberts, York Brewery's visitor centre supervisor, has been smoking for eight years. He's 21 now, and started when he was only 12. "I'm not very proud of that," he said.

He is now trying to quit. Smoking definitely affects his health, even though he is still young, he says. "I'm asthmatic, and I can feel my chest beginning to tighten sometimes."

He used to smoke 20 a day. Now, using willpower, he has cut down to three or four. He is not attracted to group sessions or using gimmicks to help him give up.

"I think quitting smoking is a personal thing. It is all in your own head," he says.

Despite that, he thinks it would be good if employers were willing to give smoking staff time off to attend clinics to help them quit.

"I wouldn't be happy to be off on a quit smoking course leaving the rest of the staff here," he said, to snorts from Tony and Andrew. "I agree it would not be fair on non-smokers, as smokers would be getting the benefit of something that was our own doing. But I would go on a course if I had the chance."

Ludicrous... or a great idea?

YORK GP Dr David Fair today blasted Nice's recommendations that smokers should be given time off work to attend smoking clinics as "absolutely ludicrous".

To be successful at giving up smoking, a smoker had to be utterly committed and really want to quit, said Dr Fair, pictured below.

Attending clinics on work time involved little or no commitment. "If they want to give up and need help, people need to be prepared to invest their own effort and time rather than someone else's," he said.

As well as being ineffective, such a scheme would be unfair on non-smokers who didn't get time off, and unfair on the companies whose workers were taking time off.

"And the obvious question is, if an employer pays for a smoker to go on a course and the smoker does not succeed in quitting, are they then going to reimburse their employer?" he asked.

Others, however, were more supportive of the scheme.

Sylvia Johnson, of the North Yorkshire Stop Smoking Service, said her organisation already worked with a number of employers running free NHS stop-smoking clinics, either in the workplace if there are eight or more staff who want to take part, or elsewhere.

Smokers attended one hour a week for seven weeks, and 70 per cent of them were still not smoking a month after finishing the course.

Of those, 35 to 40 per cent were still not smoking a year later, she said. That was a success rate four times higher than for people who tried to quit alone.

There were real benefits to employers who allowed smokers to attend such courses, Sylvia said.

Yes, there might be some resentment from non-smoking workmates. But smokers who did quit would not need to take cigarette breaks, and would be off sick less in future.

"The long-term advantages will be enormous," she said.

Clinics run by her organisation were a form of medical treatment, she added. Employees were allowed time off work to go to their GP, or for a hospital out-patient appointment, so why not to a smoking clinic?

Local business leaders were also cautiously supportive.

Andrew Palmer, deputy regional director for Yorkshire of the employers confederation the CBI, said: "It is a matter for individual employers, but we would hope they would take a commonsense approach."

Richard McAuley, managing director of local hi-tech firm AVQ, which won the Business of the Year title in The Press Business Awards 2006, said it was a "positive step".

There may be some disquiet at smokers getting what were perceived to be extra breaks when non-smokers did not, he said. But the long-term benefits of a healthier workforce who needed fewer cigarette breaks would be real, he added.

The cost of smoking

* Smoking costs the NHS an estimated £1.5 billion each year. It costs industry an estimated £5 billion each year in lost productivity, absenteeism and fire damage* Every year, about 114,000 smokers in the UK die from smoking-related causes* Smoking causes almost 90 per cent of deaths from lung cancer, 80 per cent of deaths from bronchitis and emphysema, and about 17 per cent of deaths from heart disease* About one-third of all cancer deaths can be attributed to smoking. These include cancer of the lung, mouth, lip, throat, bladder, kidney, stomach, liver and cervix* Smokers aged under 40 have a five times greater risk of heart attack than non-smokers* About half of all regular smokers will eventually be killed by their addiction* The ban on smoking in public places comes into force in England on July 1.