Pharmacies and leisure centres help smokers ‘kick the habit’

With thousands of people preparing to ‘kick the habit’ on National No Smoking Day, smokers across the city of Belfast are being given an added incentive to crush out smoking forever.

From the beginning of this month, community pharmacists across Belfast will be distributing special vouchers to people intending to give up smoking which entitle them to free swimming sessions, fitness assessments and other activities at any of the leisure centres owned by Belfast City Council.

The pilot scheme, ‘Commit to Quit’ was launched at Belfast City Hall in the run up to National No Smoking Day which is on March 13. The scheme encompasses more than 150 pharmacies from across Belfast and all Belfast City Council’s leisure centres.

The Lord Mayor of Belfast Jim Rodgers, who launched the programme on Monday March 4, said the scheme was an “excellent example of how forging partnerships between agencies can work to the benefit of the people".

"I sincerely hope that other health trusts and local authorities will also take this magnificent scheme on board, so that smokers all over Northern Ireland can reap the rewards for themselves and commit both to quit and to get fit.”

According to figures from the Health Promotion Agency, around 2,500 deaths in Northern Ireland each year are caused by diseases related to smoking. This represents one in every six of the total number of deaths or six deaths every day. Smoking-related diseases cost the Health and Personal Social Services more than £17 million each year.

Dr Terry Maguire, who is one of the United Kingdom's leading experts on the subject said: “Smoking cessation is now a recognized role for the community pharmacist.

“Over the past ten years, pharmacists have been at the forefront of the development of smoking cessation services - especially since nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) became available for sale in pharmacies in the early 1990s, thus affording pharmacists the opportunity to support smokers wanting to stop and give encouragement to patients thinking about quitting the habit.

Dr Maguire added: “Two years ago, community pharmacists in Belfast, in collaboration with the School of Pharmacy at Queen's University, developed the Smoking Challenge 2000 - and this programme subsequently has been replicated, with documented success, across not only the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland but also in Scandinavia, where smoking cessation is very much at the top of governments' health agendas”.

(AMcE)