Statistics on Local Stop Smoking Services in England - April 2024 to March 2025 (Q4, Annual)

This section presents information on the number of prescription items used to help people stop smoking, using Prescribing Analysis and Costing Tool (ePACT) data, which are accessed from the NHS Business Services Authority (NHS BSA).

The Net Ingredient Cost (NIC) is the basic cost of a drug as listed in the Drug Tariff or price lists; it does not include discounts, dispensing costs, prescription charges or fees.

The term “pharmacology” has been replaced by “stop smoking aid”. This is to aid understanding, though the definition remains the same, please see the data quality statement of the report for further details.

There are 4 main stop smoking aids prescribed for the treatment of smoking dependence in England: Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT), Bupropion (Zyban), Vareniciline (Champix) and Cytisine. Cytisine is new to the UK in 2024/25 but has been used for many years in some countries to help people quit smoking.

The number of prescription items dispensed in England in 2024/25 was 402,029, compared to 1.8 million in 2013/14. However, this is higher than in 2023/24 (388,256).

In 2024/25, 334,303 items of NRTs were dispensed, a decrease from 2023/24 (373,879).  The number of NRTs prescribed was trending downwards until 2019/20. However, since 2020/21, the total NRTs prescribed via the Stop Smoking Service has varied between about 334,000 and 379,000 NRTs prescribed.

Cytisine is the least common item with 2,179 items dispensed in 2024/25. Cytisine is new for 2024/25. Varenicline is the next least common item with 22,811 items dispensed in 2024/25. This is a large increase compared to 2023/24 (73), the large increase is likely due to the 'Supply Disruption Alert', which may have impacted the numbers of prescribed items in 2023/24. Further information can be found here: https://www.ncsct.co.uk/publications/Champix_alternatives_2021

There was 42,736 Bupropion prescriptions in 2024/25, this is an increase compared to 2023/24 (15,304). This is still lower than 2022/23 (50,709) but similar to 2020/21 (20,925). 

The Net Ingredient Cost (NIC) of all prescription items used to help people quit smoking was £13.8 million in 2024/25. This is higher than the cost in 2023/24 when it was £12.7 million.

The cost for this financial year is about a quarter of the total in 2013/14 when the NIC of all items was £48.8 million.

A substantial proportion of those setting quit dates were eligible to receive free prescriptions from the NHS. This section breaks down those eligible to receive free prescriptions from the NHS by number of quit attempts and self-reported quit rate.

Number of quit attempts

The number of people eligible to receive free prescriptions setting a quit date was 126,386 in 2024/25. This continues the slight increase from 106,512 seen since 2020/21. Prior to 2020/21, there had been a steady decline from 331,616 in 2013/14.

This section breaks down those setting a quit date by the type of stop smoking aid used during their quit attempt. Patients can receive a variety of different treatments, including NRTs (Nicotine replacement therapy), Bupropion/Varencicline/Cytisine only or any combination of licensed/unlicensed NRTs.

Number of quit attempts

‘Combination of licensed NRTs concurrently’ had the highest number of quit attempts (79,856), followed by 'Nicotine vapes only' (39,644).