Welcome to the website of Fresh, Smoke Free North East. Here you will find details of our work together with other key local, regional and national activity designed to reduce smoking levels and help the 70 per cent of smokers who would like to quit.

For your information, the long awaited National Tobacco Strategy for England will be launched by the Secretary of State for Health on Monday 1st February and we will send you the link and our release as soon as we can. Following this we will be starting the development and consultation of a bold and ambitious ten year Regional Tobacco Strategy.
 

Around 10,000 children aged 11-15 smoke in our region - and unless they quit, one in two will die from it. It's the nation's biggest killer and costs the NHS £2.7bn a year.

 

If you feel strongly about this issue, click on the "lobby MP" section on the left to show your support and help prevent more young people become addicted to smoking.

Smoking costs businesses and organisations over £70 million a year in sickness leave and absenteeism, according to a new report by the London School of Economics.  To see the regional breakdown click here.

A National Tobacco Strategy
Thousands of people in the North East responded to a government consultation with a loud and clear voice demanding that we must help make smoking history for our children. 

The Government asked for views on a number of measures aimed at making smoking less attractive and helping smokers to quit. Over 8,000 people from the North East and tens of thousands of others across the UK supported measures such as:

     -    cigarettes sold in plain packaging
-    removing cigarette vending machines
-    better help for smokers who want to quit 
-       putting tobacco products out of sight in shops
-    more support to tackle the flow of cheap and illicit tobacco. 

The Government is now considering all of the responses it has received, not only from individuals but primary care trusts, councils, charities and other organisations.

There is still much more work to be done though and details of this are given in the Fresh Business Plan for 2008/9. And click here to see the Consultation on the future of tobacco control : consultation report  

Protecting Families from Secondhand Smoke - Regional Secondhand Smoke Training Programme
Passive smoking leads to serious health problems for children, as well as being a major drain on NHS resources.  Every year in the UK passive smoking causes :

- Over 20,000 cases of lower respiratory tract infection
- 120,000 cases of middle ear disease
- At least 22,000 new cases of wheeze and asthma
- 200 cases of bacterial meningitis
- 40 sudden infant deaths 

The Royal College of Physicians Report, Passive Smoking and Children, is the strongest evidence yet that too many children in the UK are exposed to the dangers of secondhand smoke.  Read the Report's key conclusions and recommendations.

Children's Centre staff, community nursery nurses, health trainers and school nurses are amongst those who have already attended awareness sessions through the Fresh roll-out of the Smokefree Families training programme.  To find out what is happening in your area, or to become a trainer on the programme, please email catherine.mcconnell@freshne.com

See our Smokefree Families posters and leaflets here.
To order supplies of these for your organisation, please email catherine.mcconnell@freshne.com 

Protecting Families from Secondhand Smoke - Online Resource Centre for Trainers