Bolton: Free support to stop smoking for the New Year

Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership is urging smokers to get free quit support to help them stop smoking, including downloading the Smoke Free app.

Greater Manchester residents can get six months’ free access to the app which helps users control cigarette cravings, monitor health improvements and money saved, and even chat to a stop smoking expert 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Since this offer was introduced in Greater Manchester in 2020, 4,500 people have signed up, who have collectively saved more than £4.5m from not buying cigarettes.

On average, that’s a saving of more than £1,000 per person.

In addition, an estimated 10.6m cigarettes have not been smoked - protecting both people’s health and the environment.

Stopping smoking not only reduces your risks of serious diseases like cancer, heart disease, COPD and stroke, but it gives you an extra cash boost to help towards the increased cost of living.

Dr Matt Evison, clinical lead for Greater Manchester’s Making Smoking History programme, said: “Supporting smokers to quit is a key priority in the NHS and there are more ways to quit than ever before.

“It is never too late to quit smoking and you will start to see the benefits straight away.

“Quitting smoking is the best thing you can do to improve your health and quality of life, but you don’t have to do it on your own.

“That’s why local stop smoking services, GPs, pharmacies, and tools like the Smoke Free app are so important.

“If you don’t succeed straight away, it doesn’t mean you never will.

“Every quit attempt is one step closer to quitting for good and remember, the longer you are smokefree, the less you are at risk of having a heart attack or developing a serious illness like cancer or lung disease.”

Find details of local stop smoking services and support across all 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester at makesmokinghistory.co.uk, or call the NHS Stop Smoking helpline free on 0300 123 1044.