SMOKERS hoping to quit in Cumbria are less likely to succeed than anywhere else in the country after government budget cuts forced the axing of its support service.

Less than a quarter of the people using the NHS Stop Smoking Service in Cumbria managed to quit last year, according to the latest figures from Public Health England.

This is the poorest result from all local authorities nationwide.

Now, Cumbria County Council’s public health boss Colin Cox has confirmed the smoking cessation service is one of the most recent victims of the continued financial austerity faced by the authority and is no longer available.

Mr Cox said: “Cumbria is one of the most under-funded local authority areas in the country when it comes to public health and over recent years we have had a further £2.5m cut from our public health grant.

“As a result, we simply cannot provide the same services as other areas, and smoking cessation is an example of this.

“In Cumbria we have no specialist stop-smoking service.

“All our services are provided by community pharmacists, who do an excellent job but simply don’t have as much capacity as a specialist service would have to follow up people who set a quit date."

Government figures show that in the 12 months from April 2017 to March this year, 2,093 people in Cumbria signed up with the NHS Stop Smoking Service and set themselves a date to quit. At follow up meetings four weeks later 494 people said they had given up. This is 24 per cent – below the average of 51 per cent.