Financial rewards to stop smoking could save NHS billions

New research led by the University of East Anglia has claimed that offering financial rewards to people trying to quit smoking could save the NHS billions of pounds a year and boost the economy.

Smoking currently costs the economy about £13 billion a year, including costs of £3 billion to the NHS and social care. The newly uncovered evidence, published in the Cochrane Library, provides strong evidence that financial incentives helped people to stop smoking, and stay stopped long term.

The team investigated whether rewards such as cash payments, vouchers, or the return of money deposited by those taking part, worked. The value of the rewards ranged from £35 to £912 in the form of cash payments, gift vouchers or deposits paid by participants that were later refunded. All of the trials in the general population followed participants for at least six months and those who quit were checked by testing their breath or bodily fluids.

They found that six months or more after the beginning of the trials, people receiving rewards were approximately 50 per cent more likely to have stopped smoking than those in the control groups. In people not receiving incentives, approximately seven per cent had successfully quit for six months or longer, compared to approximately 10.5 per cent of those receiving incentives.

Caitlin Notley, lead author from UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said: “Smoking is the leading cause of disease and death worldwide. Most smokers want to quit, but stopping smoking can be really challenging. Quitting smoking can greatly improve peoples’ health. Rewards, such as money or vouchers, have been used to encourage smokers to quit, and to reward them if they stay stopped. Such schemes have been used in workplaces, in clinics and hospitals, and within community programmes.

“We wanted to know whether these schemes actually work long term, as previously it was thought that perhaps incentives only worked for the time that they were given. We found that they do help people stay smoke free, even after the incentive scheme ends.

“The cost of smoking to the economy is huge – around £13 billion to the UK economy, including over £3 billion for NHS and social care and £7.5 billion to lost productivity. So these types of schemes could help save money as well as lives.”