Director of Public Health Dr Nicola Brink said a suite of legislation had already been brought in to try to stop young people vaping.
New services, particularly aimed at young people, are set to be introduced to support those laws within the next few weeks. ‘Tier one is a self-help booklet, and that is available to everyone,' said Dr Brink.
'Then we go on to tier two for people who require more support, that is face-to-face behavioural support, and we have partnered with Action for Children to deliver that.
‘Then tier three is when we actually use nicotine replacement therapy.
‘And this will be free, and it will be done either through the school nurses or where the person is not in education, we’ll be looking at support them through Quitline.’
Dr Brink said this could mean that, in extreme circumstances, children as young as 12 could be given nicotine replacement therapy, such as patches.
‘We have worked with our chief pharmacist to look at how we can how we can provide therapy for younger people,’ she said.
‘But what we will be doing is looking at tier one and tier two in the first instance, and then only using tier three when we feel it’s required.’
A survey of students from school years seven to 13 – aged between 11 and 18 – found that from over 2,000 responses, more than 10% regularly vaped. and a quarter of those wanted to quit.
A Public Health spokesman said it would be using national and local guidance to decide on who can be given treatment.
‘Young people over the age of 16 are presumed to have the capacity to decide on their own medical treatment unless there is significant evidence to suggest otherwise.
‘Children under the age of 16 can consent to their own treatment if they’re believed to have enough intelligence, competence and understanding to fully appreciate what’s involved in their treatment.’
He said if a young person was assessed as being mature enough to understand their treatment, including any benefits and risks, then they could consent to treatment themselves.
‘If not we would not provide any treatment and ask for consent to include their parents in the conversations around their health,’ he said.
They added that it was important to note that nicoteen replacement therapy products could be bought ‘off the shelf’ in pharmacies and were licensed for use by those aged 12 and over.
‘As such, young people could purchase NRT and not inform their parents of this,’ he said.
‘We are working in a more stringent framework, where we take a holistic, young person-focused approach to the provision of NRT.’
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