UK:NHS plans £10bn law suit over smoking (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

NHS plans £10bn law suit over smoking
by Marie Woolf
The Independent (572) 
Date: Sunday, 2/14/99

Hospitals and health authorities may sue cigarette manufacturers for £10bn
to pay for treating smoking-related diseases, writes Marie Woolf,
Political Correspondent. They have asked the boards of NHS trusts, which
run hospitals, and local health authorities, which fund them, to give
their views. 

Documents seen by the Independent on Sunday show that lawyers have advised
the body which represents the UK's hospitals and health authorities that
they could win billions of pounds for such NHS treatment in the past six
years. Recent lawsuits by 40 US states have recovered $206bn in healthcare
costs from tobacco firms. 

The step has been welcomed by anti-smoking campaigners. "Any company that
wastes precious NHS resources because of its negligence and deceit must be
made to pay up," said Clive Bates, director of Ash. "It's a new legal
front against the tobacco firms ... that could take them for tens of
billions in Britain."

The NHS Confederation plans more detailed legal inquiry on whether it
could win in court. The cost of hiring top commercial lawyers for such an
exercise would be around £15,000. "We should be prepared to spend
£15,000," said Terry Hanafin, chief executive of Croydon health authority
who sits on the NHS Confederation's tobacco working group. "It's worth it
because it could bring in billions to help patients if we are successful.
It's potentially a very big step. It's less than £100 per health authority
and trust." 

The move follows the publication of a hard-hitting government White Paper
entitled Smoking Kills, which set out policies to help people quit and to
control tobacco advertising. 








 

  

  




		
























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11:06 AM on 2/14/99