- Smoking costs the NHS up to £1.7 billion a year in England.[i] This includes the cost of hospital admissions, GP consultations and prescriptions
- The state also pays for sickness/invalidity benefits, widows’ pensions and other social security benefits for dependants as a result of smoking
- An analysis of the cost benefits of achieving the Government’s targets to reduce smoking has shown that £524 million should be saved as a result of a reduction in the number of heart attacks and strokes[ii]
- Smoking kills more than 120,000 people in the UK each year. It is the biggest single cause of preventable illness and death in the UK[iii]
- In 2000, an estimated 29,100 deaths (30% of all smoking attributable deaths) were due to respiratory disease[iv]
- One in three respiratory deaths in men (34%) and one in four women (26%) were attributable to smoking[v]
- 88% of all lung cancers are attributable to smoking[vi]
- One third (36%) of cancer deaths in men and one fifth (21%) of cancer deaths in women are attributable to smoking[vii]
- On average 300 people die each day as a result of smoking[viii]
[i] Department of Health, Choosing Health? resource pack, Spring 2004
[ii] Basic Facts Three: Economics: http://www.ash.org.uk/
[iii] Department of Health, Choosing Health? resource pack, Spring 2004
[iv] Peto R, Lopez A, Boreham J and Thun M (in press) Mortality from smoking in developed countries 1950-2000 (2nd Ed) Oxford University Press: Oxford. www.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/~tobacco
[v] Peto R, Lopez A, Boreham J and Thun M (in press) Mortality from smoking in developed countries 1950-2000 (2nd Ed) Oxford University Press: Oxford. www.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/~tobacco
[vi] Peto R, Lopez A, Boreham J and Thun M (in press) Mortality from smoking in developed countries 1950-2000 (2nd Ed) Oxford University Press: Oxford. www.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/~tobacco
[vii] Peto R, Lopez A, Boreham J and Thun M (in press) Mortality from smoking in developed countries 1950-2000 (2nd Ed) Oxford University Press: Oxford. www.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/~tobacco
[viii] Anne-Toni Rodgers, Communications Director at NICE, press release 11/04/02
