Smoking-related illness costs Betsi Cadwaladr health board nearly £300m a year, report shows
Smoking is costing Wales an estimated £1.56 billion a year, according to a new Public Health Wales report.
Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, which covers Flintshire and the rest of north Wales, recorded the highest costs of any health board in Wales for GP visits, prescriptions, social care, lost productivity and environmental harm linked to smoking.
The health board’s total smoking bill came to £299.6 million in 2022/23, working out at £4,472 for every smoker in the area.
Smoking-related GP visits alone cost the health board £14.3 million, the highest figure in Wales.
Prescriptions linked to smoking cost £20.4 million in the Betsi Cadwaladr area, again the highest total recorded.
Outpatient appointments added a further £16.7 million, also the highest of any health board.
Social care costs attributable to smoking reached £40.2 million, and lost productivity among smokers cost the local economy an estimated £134 million.
Environmental costs, covering litter, cigarette butt cleanup and fire damage, came to £48.2 million in the Betsi Cadwaladr area, the highest total in Wales.
The report also put a value on the quality of life lost to smoking-related illness and early death, known as QALYs.
Using a threshold of £30,000 per QALY, the cost of QALYs lost to smoking in the Betsi Cadwaladr area came to £1.08 billion, the highest of any health board in Wales.
At the higher £70,000 threshold, that figure rises to £2.53 billion.
Across Wales as a whole, the report found smoking prevalence has fallen to about 13 per cent of adults, but the financial burden remains heavily concentrated in the most deprived communities.
People in the most deprived fifth of Wales are more than three times as likely to smoke as those in the least deprived fifth, at 22.6 per cent compared with 6.8 per cent.
Nationally, lost productivity was the single largest cost category, reaching £670 million a year, followed by environmental impacts at £241.2 million.
The report notes that smoking prevalence has declined in Wales over the past two decades, but says the financial costs have not fallen at the same rate, largely because smoking remains concentrated in deprived areas.
Chris Emmerson, Consultant in Public Health with the Tobacco, Vapes and Nicotine Addiction Programme at Public Health Wales, said:
“With these figures revealing that 5 per cent of Wales’s entire health and social care budget goes on treating and supporting those harmed by smoking, the need for Wales to remain focused on the ambitious target of a smokefree Wales has never been clearer.”
Dr Jo Davies, Head of Health Economics, Advanced Analytics and Policy Modelling at Welsh Government, said:
“Behind these figures are Welsh families affected by preventable illness, lost years of healthy life and the ability to fully participate in their communities.”
Keith Reid, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Wales, said smoking remains one of the leading causes of preventable illness and early death in the country, and places a burden on smokers, their families and the health service.
The recently introduced Tobacco and Vapes Act makes it illegal to sell tobacco to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009, as part of a UK-wide move toward a smoke-free generation.
Anyone in Flintshire who smokes can access free support through Help Me Quit, NHS Wales’s national smoking cessation service, by visiting helpmequit.wales or calling 0800 085 2219.
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