Stoptober is back for 2018

A reminder to everyone that Stoptober returns to encourage people to quit smoking from 1st October. Since the campaign first started back in 2012, Stoptober has prompted over 1.7 million quit attempts. Research shows that if you can stop smoking for 28-days, you are five times more likely to kick the habit for good.

This year, the stop smoking campaign from Public Health England, aims to make it easier than ever for individuals to become smokefree. Rather than smokers ‘going cold turkey’, Stoptober encourages smokers to ‘quit with support’. An online Personal Quit Plan is available to help individual smokers to identify the most suitable support for them to maximise the chance of quit success. A variety of other Stoptober resources are available for those looking to quit, including email support tips, Facebook Messenger bot and the Stoptober app.

Please do support this year’s campaign in whatever way you can. Use it as a springboard to encourage your contacts to make a quit attempt by sharing the Stoptober messages on your websites and via social media. Take the opportunity to use the campaign to start a brief discussion with a smoker about quitting, or hold your own Stoptober event to raise awareness – every little helps! Remember to signpost smokers to the local stop smoking services available through Devon’s One Small Step website.

You can take a look at some of their campaign resources here.