Quit rates

NHS Smoking cessation service statistics (Scotland 1st January to 31st December 2008

This is the third annual release of statistics from the national monitoring of NHS smoking cessation services. The report provides an analysis of quit attempts made, and quit outcomes, during the 2008 calendar year. Care should be taken in making direct comparisons between NHS board areas. Differences in the types of services provided, under-recording of data and differences in the proportion of cases ‘lost to follow-up’ all contribute to variations in findings across board areas.

Information is taken from the agreed national minimum dataset for smoking cessation services (developed by PATH) and is based on 'quit attempts' made during the year. The primary data source is the National Smoking Cessation Database, established by ISD Scotland in July 2005.  Findings include:

• 50,121 quit attempts made during 2008 (44,019 in 2007)
• January was the busiest month for services
• an estimated 4.8% of smokers in Scotland made a quit attempt with an NHS smoking cessation service during 2008
• at 1 month follow-up - 38% had quit; 33% were still smoking and 29% were ‘lost to follow-up’/smoking status unknown.
• by 3 month follow-up the Scotland quit rate was 19% and 8% at 12 months  
• there is wide variation in numbers of quit attempts made and quit outcomes across NHS boards. Reasons for this are explored in the report.