London,
27
February
2025
|
12:14
Europe/London

New grant funding awarded for Camden’s stop smoking service

The council has agreed to allocate over £234,000 of grant funding to Camden’s local Stop Smoking Services next year.

The funding has been allocated by the Office for Health Improvement & Disparities (OHID) and will be used to help fund our successful community stop smoking service, Breathe.

We have seen a nine percent increase in people successfully quitting using the service, which means 600 residents a year are stopping smoking.

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Councillor Anna Wright, Cabinet Member for Health, Wellbeing and Adult Social Care

Quitting smoking is one of the best things you can do for your health. 

Quitting will allow you to start moving better, breathe more easily and give you more money to spend. The average 10-a-day smoker spends around £2,500 a year on tobacco. If you quit smoking for a week, you could save £45.50 – enough to pay for a family trip to the cinema.

Combining stop smoking aids with expert support from Breathe, our local stop smoking service, makes someone three times as likely to stop smoking successfully than trying to quit alone.

Councillor Anna Wright, Cabinet Member for Health, Wellbeing and Adult Social Care
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Breathe is well established and is a single point of contact for stop smoking for smokers wishing to quit, GPs and Pharmacists, and professionals seeking training in stop smoking advice.

The grant’s conditions set targets for increasing the number of residents who attempt to quit smoking. For Camden, this means an additional 238 people setting a quit date in 2025/26, a fifty percent increase on this year’s target.

We have seen good success among our priority groups with 65% of all quits among smokers with no or low income and or living in the most deprived areas, and 51% of smokers from non-white British ethnicities in the first half of the year.

Councillor Wright continued:

“Breathe has a great track record of delivering quits, exceeding their targets in the last two years.

“This funding gives us more specialist support so we can reach more people with our tailored quit support across Camden.

“National No Smoking Day is on Wednesday 12 March and could be an ideal time to start your journey to quit. Support is only a call away.”

If you live, work, study or volunteer in Camden, our Breathe Stop Smoking Service is a free, flexible service offering you support and advice from the friendly team of specialist advisors. Breathe offers a range of face-to-face appointments in venues across Camden and the option is there for you to receive telephone support if you prefer.

Breathe Stop Smoking Service

You can read the relevant cabinet papers online.