Smokers in Angus are to be given cash bribes to give up their habit, as the controversial quit4u scheme is extended beyond Dundee.
Health workers are heading for Arbroath to launch the stop smoking initiative at Sea Fest this weekend.
Smokers who participate in weekly breath tests and can prove they have stayed off tobacco will be given the incentive of £12.50 per week to spend on groceries in a local supermarket.
The plan is to extend quit4u to Forfar, Brechin and Montrose over the coming months.
NHS Tayside has spent more than £4.5m trying to stub out smoking in the past five years. The health authority said almost half of those trying to give up were not smoking after four weeks on the scheme.
The authority defends the scheme for producing better quit rates than before the cash bribes were introduced.
The scheme was first launched in Dundee in March 2009 after a similar scheme for pregnant women called Give It Up For Baby was launched two years previously.
That earlier launch prompted nationwide interest by both the media and subsequently by health authorities across the UK interested in introducing the scheme elsewhere.
Since then, what NHS Tayside prefers to call the cash “incentive” schemes have been introduced in areas of Tayside where there is high deprivation.’High deprivation’Not every smoker in Arbroath will be eligible for the scheme which is being targeted at smokers in areas of deprivation because poverty is known to be linked to high smoking rates.
NHS Tayside’s deputy director of public health Paul Ballard has stated that smoking rates were high in more deprived communities in Tayside and that it was extremely difficult to get people from such backgrounds to give up their cigarettes.
He has repeatedly championed NHS Tayside’s approach which channels resources to the most deprived areas of the region.
“The cost of treating people from smoking-related diseases far outweighs the figures for quitting in terms of investment,” he said last year when it emerged Tayside would not meet government targets for the numbers of quitters.
“NHS Tayside has focused its investment on the areas of Tayside which have the highest populations of smokers and these areas, without exception, are areas of high deprivation.”
Mr Ballard added, “We are trying to help those in greatest need so we focus our energies and investment on the most deprived.”
This weekend staff from Angus Community Health Partnership will be available throughout the two days of Arbroath Sea Fest to sign people up for the scheme and to give general advice about how best to quit smoking.’Good evidence’They say the quit rate with the scheme after four weeks is almost 50% which is “significantly higher” than the average for those not on the scheme.
Kenny Grewar, Angus Community Health Partnership smoking cessation co-ordinator, said, “There is already good evidence that the quit4u scheme has increased the number of people stopping smoking elsewhere in Tayside. Now people in Arbroath can also have that additional incentive to stop.”
The incentive will be available to smokers from the areas of highest smoking prevalence as defined by post code.
People signing up for quit4u will also have all the benefits of support, advice and access to prescribing already available to people attending community stop smoking groups and pharmacies.
Community groups are available in Arbroath on Mondays at 10.30am in the Abbey Health Centre, 4.30pm at Springfield Medical Centre and 7.30pm at Arbroath Community Centre.
A new stop smoking group is due to start at Little Cairnie and will run each Thursday at 9.30am. All of the community pharmacies in Arbroath will also be delivering the service.
For more information call the NHS Tayside Quitline on 0845 600 999 6 or NHS Tayside Angus Smoke Free Service on 01241 430303 ext 221.