Digital app helps patients quit smoking
Posted: - 5th June 2026
Tobacco remains the leading preventable cause of ill health, disability, and premature death in England, claiming around 64,000 lives each year. The independent Khan review in 2022 warned that without decisive action, smoking will cause almost half a million additional deaths by 2030.
The North East and Yorkshire Tobacco Prevention project is a digitally enabled tobacco dependence treatment initiative delivered across secondary care settings in collaboration with NHS partners. The project was established to enhance existing inpatient tobacco dependence treatment by introducing the Smokefree App as a structured digital intervention, supporting patients who wish to quit smoking during hospitalisation and continue their quit journey following discharge.
Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber, working alongside Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria, NHS England North East and Yorkshire, and participating ICBs and trusts, has supported the coordinated rollout and evaluation of the smoking cessation intervention.
Following implementation, the Smokefree App has been made available across 13 NHS trusts, with more than 700 patients accessing the Smokefree App to support their quit attempts. A longitudinal evaluation approach has been established to track engagement, quit attempts, and outcomes over time, enabling assessment of both effectiveness and sustainability. Originally commissioned from April 2025 to 31 March 2026, the pilot was extended until June 2026 to maximise patient benefit and enable wider access to the Smokefree App.
Project alignment
The project aligns strongly with national and regional priorities across Analogue to Digital, Hospital to Community, and Sickness to Prevention, as well as workforce productivity and the Core20PLUS5 approach to reducing health inequalities. By embedding a digital intervention within hospital-based tobacco dependence treatment, the project provides patients with continuous, accessible support outside traditional face-to-face pathways.
The model directly supports the transition from hospital to community by maintaining engagement with patient’s post-discharge. This helps to reach patients who want to quit smoking but are less likely to engage with traditional community smoking cessation services, providing a more accessible and flexible route to support.
The focus on prevention aligns with national ambitions to reduce smoking prevalence and prevent smoking-related disease, while targeting populations with higher smoking rates supports efforts to address entrenched health inequalities. By supporting quit attempts during hospitalisation, the project also contributes to improved productivity outcomes through potential reductions in smoking-related illness and readmissions.
This project also aligns with the government’s commitment to stop smoking support and create a smoke-free generation.
How we helped
Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber helped bring the project together, kept delivery on track, and designed how its impact would be measured. Working with Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria, we helped the regional NHS North East and Yorkshire team alongside Integrated Care Boards’ Tobacco Leads and participating trusts work together so the project was delivered consistently in different areas.
Our contribution focused on establishing governance structures, supporting onboarding, training frontline teams, and developing a robust longitudinal evaluation. This included defining data collection approaches, supporting information governance assurance, and ensuring that evaluation captured both quantitative outcomes and qualitative learning from frontline staff and patients.
Impact
From April 2025 to May 2026 more than 700 patients accessed the Smokefree App, with 241 successfully quitting smoking with its support.
Primary outcome measures include quit rates at defined follow-up points (around six weeks), alongside qualitative feedback from patients and Tobacco Dependency Advisors to understand user experience and implementation barriers. Additional measures explore how the intervention supports continuity of care and reduces loss to follow-up compared to existing pathways.
At a system level, the evaluation assesses whether the intervention demonstrates sufficient evidence to support wider adoption and scaling across geographies.
Patient testimonial
The app enables users to track smoke-free days, money saved and improvements to their health in real time, helping to maintain motivation. Unlike many digital health tools, Smokefree goes beyond self-help by offering 24/7 access to trained advisors who can provide guidance and encouragement throughout a patient’s quit journey.
Carlos, a patient at the Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust who stopped smoking with the support of the app, said:
“I’d smoked for over ten years, and although I’d tried to quit before, it had never worked.
“What really prompted the change was a hospital admission for another health issue. While I was there, they encouraged me to stop smoking and asked if I wanted to speak to the stop smoking advisor. I agreed to have a chat.
“She gave me some information, including details about the Smokefree app, and I remember thinking it felt different from what I’d tried in the past. It felt new.”
“Having support available at any time was important for me. Anxiety doesn’t work to a schedule, and things can come up at any point in the day. Knowing the app was there, no matter what else was going on in my life, made it easier to keep going.”