Smoking statistics show wide variation

By Julie Griffiths on 14 March 2018 Smoking

A new report shows that just one in six clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are meeting the national ambition that fewer than 6% of women should be smoking at the time they give birth.

Smoking rates at time of birth were found to be 17 times higher in some CCGs than in others, according to the report by NHS Digital.

The CCGs with the lowest proportion of women known to be smokers at time of delivery were NHS Wokingham (1.6%), NHS Camden (2.4%) and NHS Hammersmith and Fulham (2.4%).

The CCGs with the highest proportions were NHS Blackpool (27.8%), NHS South Kent Coast (23.1%) and NHS South Tyneside (21.7%).

However, findings from the quarterly report for April to December 2017 show that 10.8% of pregnant women were known to be smokers at the time of delivery compared to 11% for the previous quarter.

With national non-smoking day taking place today (14 March) the NCT’s senior policy advisor Elizabeth Duff urged women to ask their midwives about help available to stop smoking while pregnant, including local NHS stop smoking services.

The Statistics on women's smoking status at time of delivery, England – Quarter 3, 2017-18 can be found in full here.