GPs and other healthcare professionals should offer advice on vaping as a way to help patients stop smoking, according to draft guidance from NICE.
The updated recommendations, created in collaboration with Public Health England, replace eight previous sets of guidance on prevention and quitting smoking.
NICE said the evidence shows that nicotine-containing e-cigarettes can help people to stop smoking and are similarly effective to other options such as nicotine replacement therapy (NRT).
People should be able to use e-cigarettes to quit smoking if they choose, but should be advised that there is not enough evidence to know whether there are long-term harms, the recommendations state.
Healthcare professionals should advise that e-cigarettes are substantially less harmful than smoking but also that e-cigarettes are not licensed medicines, NICE said in the draft recommendations.
Advice should also be given on where people can find information about e-cigarettes, how to use them correctly and that they should stop smoking completely if they decide to start vaping.
Earlier this year, PHE published an independent report showing that smokers who used vaping as part of a quit attempt have some of the highest success rates.
Emma Wilkinson – PULSE – 2021-06-24.
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