We were really excited to hear about the government’s plans to provide one million free vape starter quits for smokers through the roll-out of the national Swap to Stop scheme, as part of the government’s wider Smokefree 2030 ambition.
E-cigarettes have proven to be a popular and highly successful quit aid for individuals accessing Stop Smoking support through One You Surrey. Around 67% of our service users opt to use an e-cigarette to support with their quit attempt. And since introducing e-cigarettes as a quit aid in April 2022, we have observed a 7% uplift in achievement of 4-week quits, and an impressive 16% increase in the attainment of 12-week quits.
We were grateful to have the opportunity to work in partnership with Surrey County Council to successfully lodge an application which will see us support over 3,000 smokers in Surrey to access a free vape starter kit via the scheme.
As we already have a well-established e-cigarette offer within the service, the cost savings from utilising the Swap to Stop scheme will allow us to extend provision of e-cigarettes to service users from ‘non-priority’ groups who are currently not eligible to access funded quit aids within our current service model. Through creating this universal offer, we anticipate we will support more Surrey residents than ever to quit smoking.
Looking ahead, the cost savings from the scheme will also be re-invested into providing targeted support to high need, complex smokers. Recent data suggests that in Surrey, almost 70% of adults in treatment for substance misuse are smokers. We are looking forward to working in partnership with i-access drug and alcohol service in the coming months to pilot outreach support for their service users to quit smoking.
