Residents urged to stub it out

Public health officers from Walsall Council are stepping up efforts to urge people to kick the habit and help them improve their health and stop preventable diseases and premature death.

They were out in force at Walsall FC on Saturday, ahead of the home game against Scunthorpe, to launch their ‘Stoptober’ campaign – which has been supported by the club.

Key messages from the campaign include urging people to quit, make their homes smoke free, protecting their children and pointing out people are five times more likely to quit for good if they successfully stop for 28 days.

Walsall public health officer Mark Bould said the need for the campaign was highlighted by data that painted a stark picture for Walsall.

Current statistics show that there are 15.6 per cent of adult smokers out of a population of 214,100 over 18s in Walsall – which is a reduction from 21.9 per cent in 2011.

In a two-year period between 2012 and 2014, there were 1,369 deaths in Walsall due to smoking as a result of lung cancer, COPD or heart disease.

Figures also show that 13.2 per cent of pregnant women said they were smoking at the time of delivery – one of the highest in the country.

Mr Bould added that it is estimated that smoking costs £70.6 million which includes total costs to the NHS at around £11.6 million, early deaths due to smoking costing the economy around £18 million, staff smoking breaks costing Walsall organisations an estimated £28.7 million, businesses losing 53,941 days of productivity due to smoking related sick days – at a cost of around £5 million, additional social care later in life costing the council around £3.4 million and there are 27 tonnes of waste from 159 million filtered cigarettes created annually with an estimated six million of this discarded as street litter that must be collected.

At Saturday’s event, public health officers encouraged fans to sign up to the Stoptober challenge and distributed pens, key rings and information about services available in Walsall to help those who want to quit.

Mr Bould said: “A lot of people we spoke to were very much against smoking and believe it should be outlawed completely.

“I’ve had more support for what we are doing than we’ve had people who are against it so it was important we got the message out there.

“A few people did say they get stressed and they would never stop but I’ve had a few such as a 71-year-old man who said he’d never smoked, hated it and thinks it should be banned.

“One of my roles is to engage with employers and a healthier workforce is a more productive workforce.

“Over the next couple of years, we are trying to reduce it in particular amongst pregnant women to a much lower rate, where there is a high prevalence in Walsall.”

Councillor Marco Longhi, Walsall Council’s portfolio holder for health and wellbeing, said: “Year on year, we have made great strides with regards smoking cessation but we can’t rest on our laurels and we must persist.

“We particularly need to do more work with young people and pregnant women.

“When you see the stats it is quite scary and shows what the pull of addiction can be when someone is carrying a baby that could be harmed but you still can’t stop.

“Anything we can do to prevent people starting or stop them smoking, then every effort will be done to support them.

“We’ve had great support from Walsall FC, which we thank them for. Stoptober is one initiative and the council does a number of others.”