Residents give feedback on support services for stopping smoking
“My friends have all told me that they've taken it up and it didn't help so I felt no motivation to go through those channels.”
Working with our partners, we spoke to 65 residents who were either smokers or who had recently given up. 36 of the people we heard from had been offered support to stop smoking, either from their GP or from another health professional. However, only 12 people had taken up the offer.
It can of course be very difficult to give up smoking. In many cases, people didn't access support to stop smoking because they didn't want to stop. Others felt addicted and had no confidence that support services could help. And some used cigarettes as a coping mechanism to help them manage stress, loneliness, or other difficulties in their lives.
Friends and peers strongly influenced how people viewed smoking cessation services. We spoke to a comparatively small number of residents so it would be wrong to draw too many conclusions from this work, but we did not hear from anyone who had successfully quit smoking and put their success down to the use of support services. Nor did anyone identify other people within their communities who had done so.
"No one around me stopped smoking with these services"
- Kurdish woman aged between 50 and 64
There were also a number of residents who said that smoking support was harder for them to access because it was only offered in English.
What would help?
- Better access to language support
- Community champions who, based on their own positive experience, can promote smoking cessation services to their peers
Find out more
We heard from 98 residents from communities experiencing health inequalities. They were all smokers or ex-smokers and shared their views on stopping smoking and on pulmonary rehabilitation services.
