Tobacco control action plan for Wales

One of the key themes identified in Our Healthy Future is the need to further reduce the number of people who smoke and are exposed to second-hand smoke in Wales.

This Action Plan has been developed to address these issues.

The Tobacco Control Action Plan builds on our programme of measures to discourage young people from starting to smoke. It will also help support smokers who want to give up and promote smoke-free environments, particularly to protect children and to reduce inequalities in health.

Our key aim is to reduce the number of adult smokers in Wales to 16% by 2020. We  will review progress in 2016 to see whether we have achieved this.

The Action Plan identifies four key areas:

• promoting leadership in tobacco control;
• reducing the uptake of smoking, especially amongst children and young people;
• significantly reducing the number of people who smoke; and
• reducing exposure to second-hand smoke.

The plan identifies a number of actions within each area to help achieve this. The ultimate vision is of a smoke-free society for Wales. The Tobacco Control Delivery Plan sets out the responsibilities for each action and the timescales.

To aid this process we will be establishing a  Delivery Board to oversee the progress of the delivery plan. The board will be comprised of key stakeholders responsible for the delivery of the targets and actions in the plan.