On 19 January the latest available quarterly statistics on NHS Stop Smoking Services in England were published by the Government. They’ve been doing this since 2004.
Every three months, statistics are gathered in exacting detail from 151 Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) across 10 Strategic Health Authorities. This includes an esoteric breakdown into Spearhead PCTs and Non-Spearhead PCTs.
- Patients are analysed by location, age, gender, socio-economic class, eligibility to receive free prescriptions, and whether they were pregnant.
- Methods of intervention were analysed by one-to-one support, drop-in centre, closed group work, open group work, couple/family support, telephone support, and other.
- Pharmacological support was analysed by Nicotine Replacement Therapy, Buproprion (Zyban), Varenicline (Champix), and by any combination of two or three of these, and none of the above.
What on earth is the point of all these statistics?
Q. What is counted as a success?
A. If someone has given up smoking for TWO WHOLE WEEKS! “A client is counted as having successfully quit smoking at the 4 week follow-up if he/she has not smoked at all since two weeks after the quit date.”
Q. What is the cost of all these NHS Stop Smoking Services?
A. “The total expenditure on NHS Stop Smoking Services in England in 2010/11 (excluding NRT, Bupropion and Varenicline prescriptions) was £84.3 million.”
EXCLUDING prescription costs. And no doubt excluding the considerable costs to the NHS of producing, analysing and publishing all these statistics four times a year.
OK readers: you are bright people. Have a look at these figures and reports for yourselves. What do you think?