NHS Tayside recorded the joint-lowest proportion of successful attempts at quitting smoking in Scotland last year.
The health authority spent £1.6 million of Scottish Government cash over the last three years on programmes to help people stop smoking and plans to spend a similar amount over the next three years.
NHS Tayside’s deputy director of public health Paul Ballard said the health authority knew it had not been doing well on meeting Scottish Government targets on smoking and the figures were “not a big surprise”.
According to statistics just released, Tayside and NHS Lanarkshire both recorded 33% rates of success in helping people stop smoking, while NHS Fife recorded a 42% success rate.
A total of 5106 attempts to stop were recorded last year in Tayside although the total may include more than one attempt by the same person that year.
A total of 1693 successfully stopped smoking, when the ex-smokers reported they were not smoking one month after setting a date to quit. Of the mainland health boards, NHS Highland recorded the highest percentage of quitters in one month 52%.
NHS Tayside recorded the highest percentage of failed attempts at one month after setting a date to stop smoking, with 1844 (36%) reporting they had started smoking again after one month. In NHS Fife the number was 1146 (28%).
Mr Ballard admitted the health authority did not meet government targets over the three years to the end of March. However he said Tayside was always going to have difficulty meeting those targets as the region was starting from a very poor position with high rates of smokers.
He said the health authority had performed well in terms of tackling smoking in pregnancy and in bringing down the numbers of smokers in areas of high deprivation. He added that Tayside had concentrated its smoking cessation and smoking prevention work in areas of high deprivation where the highest rates of smokers were.
Scottish Government targets now focused on areas of high deprivation, he said, seeking an 8% cut in the total numbers of smokers in the region over the next three years, with 60% of that target coming from areas of high deprivation.
“Compared to other parts of Scotland, we have much higher numbers of people smoking in Tayside because we have such high poverty,” he said.
“We have some of the highest poverty outside of Glasgow. We have made a deliberate attempt to target people in deprived areas who smoke. We have been really successful in that and will continue to be really successful.”
Regarding the failure to meet other smoking-related targets, he said, “We have a service improvement plan we are on the case.”
Picture used under Creative Commons licence courtesy of Flickr user Valentin.Ottone.