Stoptober: the 28-day stop smoking challenge

Stoptober is back to launch its 10th mass quit attempt on 1st October, calling on smokers in England to join the 2.3 million others who have made a quit attempt with the campaign since it launched a decade ago in 2012.

Over 6 million adults in England still smoke, and it remains the leading cause of premature death, with almost 75,000 preventable deaths a year. A new nationwide survey of 2,000 current smokers released today has found that nearly half (45%) have been smoking more since the first lockdown began. Key reasons reported are being bored in the lockdowns (43%) or the pandemic making them more anxious (42%). What’s more, data from the monthly UCL Smoking Toolkit Study indicates a large increase in smoking among the under-35s since the coronavirus pandemic, up from 18% in 2019 to 24% now.

Support to quit

Stoptober offers a range of free quitting tools including: the NHS Quit Smoking app, Facebook messenger bot, Stoptober Facebook online communities, daily emails and SMS, and an online Personal Quit Plan.  To find out more about support available visit the Better Health Quit Smoking page.

For local support to quit smoking visit Solihull local Stop Smoking page.