Living Well Smokefree is funded by North Yorkshire County Council and has a friendly team of advisors with plenty of experience of helping people to stop. They provide personalised, one-to-one support over six to 12 weeks and supply either Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) or Champix, a course of tablets which can help to relieve the craving and withdrawal symptoms associated with giving up smoking.
County Councillor Caroline Dickinson, North Yorkshire’s Executive Member for Public Health and Prevention, said:
Smoking is still the biggest preventable cause of ill health and early death in North Yorkshire, killing over 1,000 people in the county every year, so we’re using part of our Public Health grant to fund Living Well Smokefree – and I am delighted we are.
We know that people who use the combination of support that our Living Well Smokefree service provides will be three times more likely to give up the habit, and stay smoke-free, rather than if they were to try to stop smoking on their own.
Ged Wilkinson has been using the service since it started and says:
I’ve found Living Well Smokefree extremely easy to access and it’s great at identifying individual’s needs and the method and choice of NRT products. The face-to-face weekly meetings really help to support lifestyle changes.
Living Well Smokefree welcomes anyone from the age of 12 upwards; has community-based locations across North Yorkshire; and can arrange home visits for people who have trouble getting out and about. It’s also an e-cigarette friendly stop smoking service, which means anyone who wants to use an e-cigarette to help them to give up can still use face-to-face support and clinics that the service provides.
Cllr Dickinson added: “So if you’re a smoker and you think you’d like to give up, please get in touch with Living Well Smokefree. If you do it during the Stoptober campaign, you’ll be able to access additional direct support – just search ‘Stoptober’ online to access free support, advice and information, including Facebook chat.”
To contact the Living Well Smokefree team for advice about giving up smoking for good, call 01609 797272 or email stop.smoking@northyorks.gov.uk
