Every year around 120,000 people in the UK will die as a result of smoking.  In fact, smoking is one of the most damaging lifestyle decisions anyone can take. Yet despite this, over one quarter of adults in the UK are smokers.(ii)

What is of particular concern to health groups is that more and more young people are taking up the habit. According to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), smoking is highest among those aged 20-34 years - 38 per cent of men and women smoke in this age group. What’s more, in the UK an estimated 450 children start smoking every day.(ii)

Most people know that cigarettes contain nicotine which gives you the ‘hit’ but it is often it is not known that it is the other 4000 chemicals and gases (including tar and carbon monoxide) in the smoke that can cause the damage and can kill.

Today, about 70 per cent of current smokers would like to give up altogether. (iii) However, smoking is not an easy habit to break - the nicotine in cigarettes is very addictive and it can take repeated attempts before smokers quit successfully.

Working in a community pharmacy is an ideal place to advise customers and give them help to quit smoking. NICE have produced some guidance to help achieve the most effective service to encourage smokers to quit.  The guidance is about brief interventions and referral for smoking cessation and recommends that everyone who smokes should be advised to quit unless there are exceptional circumstances. This could be simple opportunistic advice, to issuing the customer with self help materials or referral to the free local NHS Stop Smoking clinic.