Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many mental health trusts are implementing smoking cessation services.

Smoking is the number one entirely preventable cause of ill-health, disability and death in this country. It is responsible for 80,000 yearly deaths in the United Kingdom and one in four of all UK cancer deaths. Smoking is closely associated with poor mental health and wellbeing, as people with mental health conditions die 10 to 20 years earlier, with smoking contributing significantly to this. Further information on the wellbeing of smokers aged 18 years old and over, and the relationship between smoking and mental health, is available respectively at the following links:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/smoking-prevalence-in-adults-current-smokers-aged-over-18-years-by-wellbeing-group-and-region

https://ukhsa.blog.gov.uk/2020/02/26/health-matters-smoking-and-mental-health/

It also costs our country £17 billion a year, £14 billion of which is through lost productivity alone. It puts huge pressure on the National Health Service and social care, costing over £3 billion a year. At the end of quarter three of 2023/24, 37 out of 48 Mental Health services identified as eligible under the NHS Long Term Plan, are reporting that they are delivering tobacco dependence treatment services.