The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7364 p243
27 August 2005

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New stop smoking guidance published

Advice for pharmacists on helping customers stop smoking has been published this week by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, PharmacyHealthLink and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.

“Helping smokers to stop: advice for pharmacists in England” provides background information on pharmacists’ role in smoking cessation services and describes the brief advice and smoking cessation treatments they can provide. It also includes information on smoking patterns and prevalence, health risks and the benefits of quitting and explains why, when trying to quit, cutting down does not work.
The document aims to reinforce the training of pharmacists who already routinely provide smoking cessation treatments and to enhance the brief interventions made by other pharmacists. Although the guidance is primarily aimed at pharmacists in England, its authors point out that the advice provided should be equally applicable to pharmacists in other parts of the UK.


The Society p267