Number of adult smokers fall by 1.6m in six years

The number of adults in England who smoke cigarettes fell by 1.6m in the past six years, according to a new report from NHS Digital.

In 2011, 7.7m adults (19.8%) were smokers, copared to 6.1m (14.9%) in 2017.

The report on smoking in England also showed the number of hospital admissions related to smoking increased by 2% from 2015/16 to 2016/17, reaching 484,700 estimated hospital admissions. This accounted for 6% of all admissions among males, and 3% of all admissions among females.

Around 11% of pregnant women were known smokers at the time of delivery, which was a similar rate to the previous year but down form 16% in 2006/07.

The number of items dispensed related to smoking cessation decreased to 860,000, compared to 2.48m in 2007/08 and a peak of 2.56m in 2010/11.

In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the rates of adult smokers remain higher at just over 16%.

The data comes despite 90% of councils having slashed spending on public health services including smoking cessation.

However, yesterday NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens told MPs on the House of Commons Health Committee that NHS England would look at expanding smoking cessation beyond the remit of local authority public health commissioning.

He said: ‘I think it’s pretty clear we’re going to have to keep pushing harder on smoking and smoking cessation is part of that, that can’t all be done through local authority commissioned services.

‘I think we’re going to have to look at how the NHS can embed smoking in more of the routine contacts we have with vulnerable groups who are still smoking.’

The Government aims for rates of smoking among adults in England to drop to 12% or less by 2022.

The above data did not include smokers of e-cigarettes. Prevalence of e-cigarette smoking in 2017 for adults remained similar to 2016, at 5%, an increase from 4% in 2014, NHS Digital said.

The most common reason for adults using e-cigarettes was as an aid to quit smoking (48%).