Welcome to the Smokefree Devon Alliance newsletter.
In this edition we look forward to Stoptober, catch up on the recent Smokefree Devon Alliance meeting and take a look at the latest national and local smoking prevalence statistics.
As always please share any information that you would like to see included in future editions.
 Stoptober will return in October. This Public Health England campaign provides a fantastic platform to engage with smokers in Devon and support them to quit - a recent evaluation describes how 19% of all smokerss made a quit attempt during last year's campaign!
We know how important it is that people get the right support to quit. Accessing support available from local stop smoking services offers the best chance of a successful quit attempt.
We would like all partners to drive smokers to the local Stop Smoking Services throughout September so that they can help smokers with their preparations for quitting on 1st October and give support to maximise their chances of success.
Campaign resources will be available from the Public Health England resource centre by the end of September. However One Small Step will be sending out materials to stakeholders at the end of August that you can use to engage your workforce and local communities.
Please share what you have planned for Stoptober this year by getting in contact with the Smokefree Devon Alliance.
The latest Smokefree Devon Alliance meeting was held on 1st July. During the meeting we heard from Russ Moody (Regional Public Health England Health & Wellbeing Programme Lead) about the current evidence around e-cigarettes as a harm reduction approach to stopping smoking. We also heard from local NHS Trusts who updated the group on progress made towards becoming truly smoke-free sites and how they are increasing access to smoking cessation services.
Natalie Winterton discussed Making Every Contact Count (MECC) and the role it can play in reducing smoking prevalence. Anyone interested in finding out more about the opportunities the MECC approach presents can find out more information on the Devon Health and Wellbeing website.
Minutes from the meeting have been shared. Please get in contact if you have not received them. You can see progress made by viewing the Action Plan.
The next Smokefree Devon Alliance meeting will be held at Devon County Council, County Hall on Monday 4th November 2019. Please get in touch if you would like to be added to the invitation list.
Fresh has developed a communications guide for NHS Trusts. The new document provides information about the importance of creating a smokefree NHS, what this means in practice and how to communicate with staff, public and patients. Although produced initially for North East England this is essential reading for all NHS Trusts locally. Please share with your communications teams.
Public Health England have released the latest Local Tobacco Control Profiles. For England, this shows another 0.5% decline in smoking prevalence amongst the adult population from last year to 14.4%.(13.4% for Devon down from 13.5%).
England has seen a slight increase in the percentage of women recorded as smokers at the time of delivery for the year up to 10.8% from 10.7%. The figure for Devon makes for better reading down from 12.3% to 11.5%. This means there is a lot of work to do to meet the current National Tobacco Control Plan ambition of reducing the rate of smoking throughout pregnancy to 6% by 2022.
 This prevalence data is available regionally and locally from here.
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