Smoking cessation

27 September 2011 - Scottish Health Survey 2010

Key points:

  • overall, 40% of all smokers had made one or two attempts to quit smoking, and a further 38% had made three or more attempts to quit. A fifth (21%) of adult smokers had made no attempt to quit
  • the majority of smokers - 69% - would like to quit smoking
  • women were more likely than men to want to quit smoking (72% versus 67%) and were more likely to have made three or more attempts to quit (42% versus 36%).
  • smokers' attempts to quit, and their desire to stop smoking, did not vary by area deprivation
  • desire to quit was unrelated to the number of cigarettes smoked per day. However, people who smoke fewer than 10 cigarettes per day were less likely to have made an attempt to quit than people smoking more than this.
Scottish Health Survey 2010, Scottish Government, Main Report, Chapter 4 - Smoking.  Available from: www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/09/27084018/32 [Accessed 27 September 2011]

27 September 2011

NHS Smoking Cessation Service Statistics (Scotland) 1st April 2008 to 31st March 2011
Data on quit attempts made with the help of NHS smoking cessation services and 'self-reported' quits at one month after 'quit date', for NHS boards in Scotland

Key points:

  • there were 228,353 quit attempts made with the help of NHS smoking cessation services in Scotland between 1st April 2008 and 31st March 2011
  • the total number of ‘self-reported’ quits at one month after ‘quit date’ in Scotland in the period 1st April 2008 to 31st March 2011 was 89,075
  • the smoking cessation HEAT target for 2008/09 to 2010/11 was to achieve 83,975 successful quit attempts at one month, across NHS smoking cessation services in Scotland. The 89,075 quits achieved exceeds the target number by 5,100 or 6.1%.

March 2011
Prescribing of Smoking Cessation Interventions

The prescribing of smoking cessation products in Scotland between 2001 and 2010 has been reviewed.  A summary of the findings is given below:

  • prescribing of smoking cessation products show seasonal variation
  • the sharp peaks around the months of January, February and March may be due to New Year Resolutions, while the steady decline after March may be due to successfully quitting or else relapsing
  • prescribing of smoking cessation products rose sharply just before the introduction of the ban in smoking in public places was introduced in Scotland in March 2006
  • of the prescribable treatments for smoking cessation, NRT is the most prevalent.

The introduction of Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) in 2001, and the strict restrictions around Bupropion, which can be found on the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC), accounts for a drop of 92.9% between 2001 and 2010.

Nicotine is the most commonly prescribed drug between 2001 and 2010; however it varies year on year.  The smoking ban and the introduction of Varenicline account for these variations.

The total prescribing of smoking cessation interventions has increased by 8.4% between 2009 and 2010; this is most like due to the introduction of Varenicline.

69% of smokers in Scotland want to quit yet until recently there were few effective support services in place to help them. The White Paper on tobacco, Smoking Kills, outlined a national smoking cessation policy for Scotland, providing local services and the provision of stop smoking aids such as Zyban and Nicotine Replacement Therapy. The NHS in Scotland spends an estimated £140 million on hospital treatment for diseases caused by smoking. Helping smokers to quit is a highly cost effective public health measure. ASH Scotland believes all proven treatments which help smokers to quit should be freely available on the NHS in Scotland

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