Stoptober is back this October to encourage and support smokers to quit for good. Stoptober is the Department of Health and Social Care’s annual stop smoking campaign, based on evidence that if a smoker makes it to 28 days smoke-free, they are five times more likely to quit for good.

Since its first launch in 2012, Stoptober has helped over 2.5 million people make a quit smoking attempt. With your help, this year we aim to encourage the remaining 5 million smokers in England to give quitting a go this October and support them to quit successfully.

While smoking rates have declined in recent years, over 5 million people in England still smoke and smoking remains the single biggest cause of preventable ill health and death. The total cost from smoking to society in England is approximately £1.9 billion per year to treat smoking-related diseases.

The latest data shows that using willpower alone remains the most common approach to quitting smoking, despite being proven to be the least effective. Stoptober is great opportunity to promote the range of national and local support available and, as a result, increase the number of successful quit attempts.

If you search ‘Stoptober’ this will direct you to the better health website or click this link: Quit smoking – Better Health – NHS. This is where you can access a range of free support, tools, information and advice on quitting smoking. There is also a postcode lookup tool to help find local stop smoking services.