Free support is being offered to all businesses and their employees in the district to encourage people to stop smoking.  Huntingdonshire District Council and the Cambridgeshire stop smoking service Camquit have joined forces to offer this free service.

Since the smoke free legislation was successfully implemented throughout England in July Camquit, have seen an increase in smokers wanting to use their service to stop smoking.

By taking advantage of this support local businesses will receive many benefits such as reduced absenteeism due to ill health and an increase in productivity.

Local businesses have a choice of two support options;
• Access to a specialist stop smoking advisor who will visit their workplace and run a stop smoking clinic on site, or
• Free training for a key member of staff to enable them to run in house stop smoking clinics within their businesses.

Councillor Deborah Reynolds, executive councillor for environmental health said, “Statistics state 70 per cent of smokers say they want to kick the habit. The council recognises that providing this support is important and it will also help continue the success of making England smoke free’’.

Chris Lloyd, the council’s lifestyles manager said ‘’This initiative provides a fantastic opportunity for businesses to focus on the health of their employees by providing a supportive environment for smokers to quit thereby enabling a positive and sustainable change to their lifestyle. This will obviously be a great gain for the individual but will also provide benefits for the businesses‘’

If you or your business are interested in this free support you can contact Oliver Langford, Smokefree Implementation Officer, Huntingdonshire District Council on 01480 388582 or Zoe Harvey Camquit on 01480 389585 for further information on how to get signed up.

The scheme is only available for a limited time and businesses will be booked on a first come first served basis.