The government has confirmed how much additional money each local authority will receive for smoking cessation services in 2025/26.

The funding, which totals £70m per year, was announced in November 2023 as part of the previous government's plans to create a smokefree generation.

And the new Labour government has continued this intention, introducing a bill to progressively increase the age at which people can buy cigarettes and imposing limits on the sales and marketing of vapes.

The government said the £70m in funding for smoking cessation services was targeted towards local authorities with the most smokers, and allocations were based on the average smoking prevalence in each area over a three-year period between 2021 and 2023.

The table below outlines the maximum amount of funding each area could receive, but the government stressed that local authorities will be required to meet certain criteria to be eligible for the additional funding.

Kent and Essex are the two local authorities with the highest number of smokers, and therefore could receive the most funding for stop smoking services - a maximum of £1,891,779 and £1,882,537 respectively.

And with just 231 estimated smokers, the Isles of Scilly could receive up to £2,854 of the funding.

When the £70m annual funding was originally announced, it was welcomed by Alastair Buxton, director of NHS services at Community Pharmacy England (CPE), who suggested ‘it should be used to increase the locally commissioned stop smoking support that community pharmacies provide’.

Numerous smoking cessation services across England are currently commissioned through community pharmacies by local councils, but Mr Buxton told The Pharmacist then that ‘local commissioning of such services by councils has been impacted in recent years by reductions in public health budgets’.

A national advanced service, which pharmacies can opt-in to provide, does exist, but only supports smokers who have been referred to the service.

Mr Buxton suggested that in order to avoid a ‘postcode lottery’ for smoking cessation support, the government should commission a national service that builds on the existing advanced service to enable people to access smoking cessation support through non-referral routes.