NHS spending more on Stop Smoking Services - but fewer people quit, says report

Fewer smokers kicked the habit in the first half of 2008/09 despite a sharp increase in spending on NHS Stop Smoking Services, says a report from The NHS Information Centre today (20 January 2009).

The report, Statistics on NHS Stop Smoking Services in England; April 2008 to September 2008, indicates that 24 per cent fewer people quit smoking during the period compared to the same period in 2007 – the months straddling the introduction of the smoking ban in July 2007 - when the number of quitters was exceptionally high.

It shows the NHS spent £33 million on the services between April and September 2008, compared to £26 million for the same period in 2007.

However, the number of smokers who managed to stay off cigarettes four weeks after quitting (the measure used to indicate someone has successfully quit) fell to 133,704 between April and September 2008, a 24 per cent fall compared to the same period in 2007 when 176,277 successfully quit.

That meant the cost per successful quitter rose to £244 between April and September 2008 from £148 for the same period in 2007.

While the number of quitters was substantially lower than for the same period in 2007, the April to September 2008 figures were four per cent higher than the same period in 2006 when 128,868 quit.

The increase in the cost of supporting smokers to quit was also less sharp when compared to April to September 2006 when the NHS Stop Smoking Services spent on average £181 per successful quitter.

Chief executive of The NHS Information Centre Tim Straughan said: “The report shows the NHS is spending more than ever to support people to quit through its Stop Smoking Services.

“The numbers who kicked the habit in April to September 2008 were substantially lower than in 2007 when the smoking ban came in. However, they were still higher than the same period in 2006 which was a more typical year to compare them with.”

Statistics on NHS Stop Smoking Services in England, April to September 2008 is at www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/sss08q2

ENDS

Notes to editors

  1. The NHS Information Centre is England's authoritative, independent source of health and social care information. It works with more than 300 health and social care providers nationwide to provide the facts and figures that help the NHS and social services run effectively. Its role is to collect data, analyse it and convert it into useful information which helps providers improve their services and supports academics, researchers, regulators and policymakers in their work. The NHS Information Centre also produces a wide range of statistical publications each year across a number of areas including: primary care, health and lifestyles, screening, hospital care, population and geography, social care and workforce and pay statistics.
  2. Statistics on NHS Stop Smoking Services in England, April to September 2008, presents provisional results from the monitoring of the NHS Stop Smoking Services (NHS SSS) in England during the period April to September 2008. This report includes information on the number of people setting a quit date and the number who successfully quit at the four week follow-up. It also presents a more in depth analyses of the key measures of the service, including pregnant women, breakdowns by ethnic groups and type of pharamcotherapy received and regional analyses at Strategic Health Authority (SHA) and Primary Care Trust (PCT) levels. This is the second quarterly report on NHS Stop Smoking Services data using aggregated PCT level returns on NHS Stop Smoking Services activity records. This can be analysed to produce a much wider variety of statistics about patterns of service use than have previously been available from SHA aggregate returns. Much of the information previously only available at a national level is now available for each SHA and for some information, at a PCT level
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