A comprehensive evaluation of the impact of English tobacco control policy on smoking cessation activities

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We aim to assess the impact of recent tobacco control policies on the number of smokers who succeed in stopping smoking in England. Smoking is the single greatest cause of preventable illness and premature death in the UK, and increasing the numbers of smokers who succeed in stopping smoking is the most important way of reducing morbidity and premature death in this country. This is the fundamental aim of many recent national tobacco policies. For example, larger and harder hitting health warnings have been introduced on cigarette packs. Financial incentives now encourage family doctors to help smokers who want to quit. Medications that aid smokers to quit, such as nicotine replacement products (NRT) have been made more accessible, for example, NRT can now be prescribed to adolescents and people with heart disease, and taxation has been reduced on over the counter sales of these treatments. Finally, a new treatment to help smokers quit has been launched, varenicline. How effective these policies and initiatives have been in increasing smokers’ attempts and success at quitting, and ultimately at improving health, has not been evaluated in any comprehensive way.We will use several existing sources of data, including specialised and national surveys, electronic primary care patient records, sales and prescriptions for NRT, and hospital admission data, that all provide different measures of smoking behaviour in England to find out how effective each of these specific policies have been. This work will help in establishing which policies are successful and effective and should be maintained, and which are ineffective and should be dropped.