A report in the latest British Medical Journal has warned that NHS smoking cessation treatment services in the UK could be under threat during the Department of Health's next spending round.

While the programmes will benefit from centrally-controlled funding until March 2002, the new primary care trusts will hold the purse strings from April and there is concern that they will not see cessation treatment as a priority.

Imperial Cancer Research Fund

Paul Nurse, director general of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, told ePolitix.com: "Smoking cessation services save lives and will therefore ultimately save the NHS money. We believe that it is essential that the services continue."

Forum Response: British Dental Association

A spokesman for the British Dental Association told ePolitix.com: " The authors of the British Medical Journal report are concerned that the long-term benefits - both to patients and to other areas of the NHS which no longer have to support so many acute heart and cancer services - will be overlooked."

"These services are so effective, and cost so little, that it is hard to see why the minister has not already approved them," said Martin Raw, co-author of the BMJ article. "If he does not do so there will be a return to postcode medicine, where smokers will get treatment or not depending on where they live. This would be appalling."

Forum Response: Cancer Research Campaign

Jean King, director of education at the Cancer Research Campaign, told ePolitix.com: "It is very important that funding for smoking cessation treatment services is guaranteed. These services have proved very effective and it is vital that smokers continue to receive as much support as possible in their attempts to quit.

"If there is a reduction in smoking cessation services as a result of changes in funding, the financial benefits would be very short-term given the immense cost to the NHS for treating smoking-related diseases."