Fewer than half of councils fund pharmacy stop smoking services

Fewer than half of local authorities commission a smoking cessation service from community pharmacy, according to a report by the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA).

The CCA estimates that this means overall, only around 15,000 people received smoking cessation support from pharmacies last year – a tiny proportion of the over five million people who smoke in England, 10% of whom said they intended to quit within the next month.

The CCA’s 2026 smoking cessation report said that 11,451 people received stop smoking support through locally commissioned (walk-in) pharmacy services last year.

Separately, the nationally commissioned NHS Smoking Cessation Service (SCS) in community pharmacy - which supports patients discharged from hospital - delivered 11,728 consultations in 2024/25.

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As pharmacies can claim for up to three consultations per patient, the CCA said this is likely to represent only around 4,000 people.

Data from the nationally commissioned service in Scotland, modelled to English health systems, indicates that national commissioning could lead to a more than 10-fold increase in provision.

In England, SCS is currently available from all community pharmacies, but it is only for patients who have started a quit attempt in hospital and want to continue in a pharmacy of their choice.

Despite being available from all community pharmacies in England, fewer than 5% of pharmacies are receiving referrals for this service, the CCA revealed.

The report highlighted that 46% of consultations in the last financial year were recorded in the most deprived communities. It also found that a third of all smoking adults live in the most deprived areas of the country, contributing to health inequalities.

Local authority services are mostly ‘walk-in’ and do not require a referral from elsewhere in the health system but variation in what is locally commissioned - and where it is commissioned - reduces awareness of support available, said CCA.

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The report said that four local authorities reported activity so low that only one person per 100,000 received pharmacy support to set a quit date.

It also revealed Blackburn and Darwen have the highest rate of set quit dates at 356 per 100,000 people, demonstrating the potential of community pharmacy.  The report said that if every local authority commissioned a community pharmacy smoking cessation service and delivered it as effectively as Blackburn and Darwen, the number of patients supported could rise from the current 11,451 to over 200,000 per year.

The CCA has urged the government to:

• Commission a national walk-in pharmacy smoking cessation service across England;
• Continue to implement Booking and Referral Standards across the healthcare landscape, allowing professionals to easily refer to community pharmacy;
• Support pharmacies to invest in their workforce, building on the existing skill base obtained through the delivery of various locally commissioned and national referral schemes.

Chief executive of the CCA, Malcolm Harrison, said: ‘The current system of local commissioning is failing to provide consistent, accessible support to people who want to stop smoking.

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‘A national smoking cessation service commissioned through community pharmacies would end the postcode lottery and help stub out the impact that smoking has on the nation’s health and economy once and for all.’