Quit smoking success rates remain low for pharmacy

Perhaps pharmacy smoking cessation services are working with one hand tie behind their backs.
There are a number of issues I can think of that may be hindering the success rate of patients who use pharmacy;

Are these a less committed cohort of patients? We tend to opportunistically select patients who might be browsing the NRT products, or who we highlight during an MUR.
A little different from the COPD patient in the GPs surgery, getting yet another prescription for anitbiotics.

Are we limited to what therapies we can use; GP services can give Champix and Zyban - our local service is limited to NRT products.
Looking at the Information Centre statistics there are higher success rates with these products compared to NRT.

So are we comparing like with like.

My worry is that on the back of these results, smoking cessations services may be decommissioned in pharmacy.

I too think we are operating with one hand tied behind our backs -
we have no access to patient medical records. The prescription of varenicline and bupropion, whilst they have better quit rates than NRT are fraught with problems (Varenicline: N Engl J Med 2009; 360:730 - 731) regarding patients with concurrent psychiatric disorders. This would be picked up from a look at a patient's record.
Until that time, I would be unwilling to participate in any prescription of these two drugs, and so it's back to NRT and it's abysmal quit rate.
But that is just one issue I have. I notice that figures for the quit rates of various methods are quoted above. These really are meaningless, as quitting is the easy bit - staying "quitted" is the hard part!! Outcome figures for, say, one year, would make more sense, and then we could see if the services that are doing better than pharmacy, really do have better rates of ex-smokers at the end of a year.
Regards
Bob Dunkley

It's important to compare like for like and also to look at the bigger picture. By definition the specialist services will have higher quit rates as this is their main role - to focus and target smoking cessation patients. These patients are already motivated to quit, so the quit rates will understandably be higher.

The benefits of community pharmacies offering smoking cessation services are access and opening times; part of a holistic range of services; opportunities to manage long term conditions such as COPD and hypertension. Quit rates are important - so is the number of patients accessing the service.

It is important for patients to have choice and access to a range of services to suit their needs.