Turning Point’s Hammersmith & Fulham service explains what the Swap to Stop scheme is and what it offers to people in the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham.
What is Swap to Stop?
The government has set an ambition for England to be smokefree by 2030, taken to indicate adult prevalence of smoking of 5% or lower. On 11 April 2023, the government announced a range of actions to speed up progress towards smokefree 2023, including offering free vaping starter packs to one million smokers by March 2025. Offering the dependent starting pack is dependent on the person wanting support with smoking agreeing to access behavioural support and is only available to people who current smoke cigarettes. The use of e-cigarettes is far less harmful than smoking tobacco. See our Stoptober blog for more information around the evidence of using e-cigarettes to stop smoking.
Turning Point Hammersmith & Fulham Stop Smoking Service
Turning Point offer a combination of stop smoking support that is tailored to each individual. This can include free vaping starter packs, one-to-one sessions with our stop smoking specialists, groups with likeminded people wanting to stop smoking and nicotine replacement therapy.
Hammersmith & Fulham’s support offer is targeted to people and groups in the community who are at a greater risk of smoking related harm. The support is targeted at those struggling with drugs and alcohol, people with a mental health diagnosis, people referred via criminal justice and pregnant women.
Thanks to the Swap to Stop programme, we have been able to offer more people e-cigarettes and have seen more people stop smoking. Turning Point have supported 212 people in Hammersmith & Fulham in the last year; 53 of them we’ve supported with e-cigarettes.
Grace’s story of using a vape to stop smoking with Turning Point
Grace found out about Turning Point’s stop smoking service, whilst receiving support for drugs and alcohol with us. Grace was smoking 20 cigarettes per day when she first reached out for support. We assessed her dependence to nicotine on the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence and it indicated she had a medium dependency. Grace was surprised by this and together we explored the different support options for her. Grace decided that a vape would help her quit smoking and was prescribed a 1.6% nicotine strength vape, with the plan of gradually reducing the nicotine strength until it reaches 0%, after which she will quit vaping all together. With the help of the nicotine vape, Grace was able to transition from smoking to vaping in the very first week of using the vape.
Grace said. ‘Turning Point were so compassionate, understanding and extremely effective at helping me stop smoking. I will never smoke again, and I’ll always remember Turning Point as the organisation that helped me to quit smoking for good!’
Find out more and refer someone for Stop Smoking support in Hammersmith & Fulham today.
This blog was originally published by Turning Point. You can read the original post here.
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