Mental health services could aid NHS by helping people to quit smoking, according to a new study

A team of researchers from the University of York found that quitting smoking interventions, tailored to the needs of people accessing mental health services, are cost-effective over 12 months.

This was mainly due to lower use of expensive hospital-based healthcare services.

Study lead, Professor Simon Gilbody, from the University of York, said: "Smoking kills large numbers of people every year and people who use mental health services have been left behind in the societal reductions in smoking rates".

The director of the Mental Health and Addictions Research Group (MHARG) at the department of health sciences, added: "Working in partnership with people who use mental health services, we have used the best research methods available to us to tackle the epidemic of smoking".

The research, conducted for the Smoking Cessation Intervention for Severe Mental Ill Health (SCIMITAR) Trial, developed targeted approaches to support smokers using mental health services to successfully quit.

NHS figures show that smoking rates among people who use mental health services are among the highest of any population group.

This contributes to profound health inequalities, with life expectancy around 20 years lower among people with conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar illness.

The NHS spends approximately £720m a year treating smoking-related disease in people with mental ill health.

Dr Emily Peckham, senior research fellow from the department of health sciences, who managed the SCIMITAR study, said: “The benefits of giving up smoking are enormous. People feel better, and they have more money when they are able to quit.

"Over time, we speculated that there might also be financial benefits to the NHS since it is very costly to treat smoking related illnesses."

Jinshuo Li, the lead health economist to the SCIMITAR study, added the team used state of the art methods to study the impact of quitting on health and costs to the NHS.

He said: "Using such methods is especially important to enable the NHS to make the best use of its money".

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