The 40th anniversary of No Smoking Day takes place on Wednesday 13 March. There are over 5.3 million adults in England who still smoke, and smoking remains the single largest preventable cause of death in England. In fact, up to two in three smokers will die as a result of long-term smoking. Almost every minute of every day someone is admitted to hospital in England with a smoking-related disease and in 2022-23, there were an estimated 400,000 hospital admissions in England due to smoking and one in four hospital patients is a smoker.

Despite the clear health risks of smoking, it’s estimated that nearly 50 million cigarettes are smoked every day in England – around nine cigarettes a day per smoker.

However, smoking rates have reduced considerably since the first year of No Smoking Day 40 years ago and this year’s No Smoking Day campaign aims to continue this pattern and encourage people to quit by offering free proven NHS resources and advice.

Be part of the change and help build a smokefree generation. A range of resources to help support No Smoking Day (Weds 13 March 2024) are now available to download from the OHID Campaign Resource Centre. These can be used by health care professionals to help drive awareness and encourage smokers to make a quit attempt.

Resources include:

• Posters
• Digital screens
• Social static assets
• Email signatures
• Social animated assets providing tips on quitting, support available and the health benefits of quitting
• Toolkit including campaign overview, key messages and suggested social posts.

Any queries about the campaign can be sent to: [email protected].

On No Smoking Day 2021 (#NoSmokingDay 10 March 2021), iHV publishes new Good Practice Points (GPP) for health visitors – Promoting smoke-free families.

No Smoking Day is a national campaign that encourages the nation’s smokers to make a quit attempt on the second Wednesday of March each year. The day is an important opportunity to engage smokers in your local community, encouraging them to quit and access local stop smoking support.

Smoking is the single most modifiable risk factor in pregnancy. In 2019/2020, 10.4% of mothers were recorded as smokers at time of delivery. It is also known that pregnancy can be a time when parents are receptive to make changes to their behaviours.

There is no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke. The best way to protect children from the effects of second-hand smoke is to not smoke during pregnancy and have a completely smoke-free home and car.

This GPP provides up-to-date evidence and references.


Please note that GPPs are available to iHV members.

If you’re not a member, please join us to get access to all of our resources.

The iHV is a self-funding charity – we can only be successful in our mission to strengthen health visiting practice if the health visiting profession and its supporters join us on our journey. We rely on our membership to develop new resources for our members.

So do join us now!

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