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A community pharmacy maternity smoking cessation scheme has been scrapped owing to low referral numbers, The Pharmaceutical Journal has learned.
Under the scheme, patients accessing maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust could be referred to a community pharmacy offering smoking cessation treatment.
First announced in March 2022, the scheme was originally intended to run for one year, but was later expanded and extended to run until March 2024.
Under the expansion, women trying to conceive could be referred for evidence-based smoking cessation support for 12 weeks, including a follow-up service, which had previously only been available to pregnant women and their families.
However, in an email to The Pharmaceutical Journal on 16 January 2025, the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) confirmed that the pilot scheme had been discontinued in March 2024 owing to “the referral route proving difficult in part of our ICB area, so only a very small number of women were referred into the service”.
Minutes from a meeting of the Nottinghamshire Local Pharmaceutical Committee, held in March 2022, noted that 26 pharmacies in the area had signed up, but said there was a delay “with the referral process from the midwives to pharmacies” and a digital referral form was being created to make referrals easier.
However, by September 2022, meeting minutes warned that “not many referrals [were] being received from hospital”.
By May 2023, meeting minutes noted that “only eight pharmacies are now on the pilot”.
A freedom of information request sent by The Pharmaceutical Journal to NHS Business Services Authority revealed that, as of March 2024 — when the pilot was discontinued — just one pharmacy had submitted a claim under the pilot in 2024.
The scheme built on the ‘NHS community pharmacy smoking cessation advanced service’, through which hospitals can refer patients to participating community pharmacies after discharge to continue with stop-smoking treatment that they started in hospital.
It was designed to improve choice and create additional smoking cessation capacity in primary care for pregnant mothers and associated household members but was also aimed at testing the digital referral mechanism between maternity services and community pharmacy.
Participating pharmacy contractors were paid £30 for an initial appointment, £10 for providing regular progress checks and £40 for a successful ‘quit’, which was verified with a carbon monoxide test.
Darush Attar-Zadeh, clinical fellow respiratory pharmacist at North West London ICB, said: “Pregnant women are usually proactively approached (offering very brief advice) by midwives and referred to tobacco dependence advisors for support.
“Whilst it isn’t good news referrals to the maternity services is low, there’s a good opportunity for community pharmacist advisors to support. There are specialist modules and training needed to support pregnant women to stop [smoking]. If pharmacists undertake this training and additional skills-based training, then there is a unique opportunity to support pregnant women to go smoke-free.”
NHS England has been approached for comment.
