Kent funding boost to tackle smoking ‘will help save lives’

The cash injection is the largest allocation to a local authority from Whitehall’s £70m 'Stopping the start' funding pot to help the UK become smokefree by 2030.

Under the grant arrangements, further annual funding to help Kent smokers quit will also follow from the Department of Health and Social Care for an additional four years between 2025 and 2029.

Speaking at a Health Reform and Public Health Cabinet Committee meeting, KCC Public Health leaders hailed the extra help to target Kent’s and Britain’s biggest cause of preventable death.

Smoking rates continue to fall nationally and locally. Less than one in nine people (11.6 per cent) now smoke in the county, compared to around one in five people (20.2 per cent) in 2011.