Hospital admissions due to smoking up nearly five per cent, NHS data shows

The latest statistics from NHS England show that in 2022-23, there were an estimated 408,700 hospital admissions due to smoking, a rise from 389,800 in 2021-22 (an increase of 4.8 per cent).

The newly published figures in NHS England’s ‘Statistics on Public Health, 2023’ report also cover 2020-21, when there were 314,100 admissions attributed to smoking, which was consistent with fewer hospital admissions overall that year.

Smoking-related admissions in each of the past three years were lower than in 2019-20, prior to the pandemic, when there were 446,400.

Around one in six (16 per cent) of all hospital admissions for respiratory diseases in 2022-23 were estimated to be related to smoking, while it also caused eight per cent of all admissions for cancers and seven per cent of admissions for cardiovascular diseases.