2008 UK National Smoking Cessation Conference
Top UK and international speakers, unparalleled networking and peer support.

The UK National Smoking Cessation Conference is the world’s largest gathering of stop smoking practitioners, policy makers and researchers.

Focussing on the policy and practice of helping smokers to stop, ground breaking presentations covered all forms of treatment, service delivery and community innovations. All patient groups were addressed, including pregnant smokers, young people, those with mental health problem, smoking cessation in secure environments and hard to reach groups.

Presentations relating to the provision of new medications, such as varenicline (Champix), and forthcoming treatments like the nicotine vaccine had a place on the programme alongside evidence on new ways to use nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), such as combining products and ‘pre-loading’ prior to quitting.

Although smoking cessation was the main focus of the conference, tobacco control measures such as smoke free public places and harm reduction were also discussed, particularly in relation to how they impact on services helping people to stop smoking.

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Conference highlights included:

• The effects of Smokefree
• Social marketing: practical examples
• New smoking cessation guidelines for health professionals
• What smokers say about stopping and relapsing
• User involvement

Plus, as always, the latest thinking on the available pharmacotherapies

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Conference planning group

Programme directors:
Andy McEwen, Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre, University College London and Hayden McRobbie, Clinical Trials Research Unit, School of Population Health, University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Programme committee:
Miriam Armstrong, Pharmacy Health Link, The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB); Deborah Arnott, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH); Steve Crone, QUIT; Linda Durgan, All Wales Smoking Cessation Service; Trish Grierson, Dumfries and Galloway Primary Care NHS Trust; Peter Hajek, Tobacco Dependence Research and Treatment Centre, Barts and the London Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry; Elspeth Lee, Behaviour Research and Tobacco Control, Cancer Research UK; Gerry McElwee, ASH Northern Ireland; Ann McNeill, University of Nottingham; Chris Owens, British Association of Stop Smoking Practitioners (BASSP); Lesley Owen, National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE); Gay Sutherland, Maudsley Hospital Smoking Cessation Clinic; Dan Tickle, No Smoking Day; Robert West, Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre, University College London.

Conference partners:
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH); ASH Scotland; ASH Wales; ASH Northern Ireland; Association for the Treatment of Tobacco Use and Dependence (ATTUD); British Association of Stop Smoking Practitioners (BASSP); British Medical Association; Cancer Research UK; No Smoking Day; Pharmacy Health Link; Pip Mason Consultancy; QUIT; Royal College of Nursing; Society for the Study of Addiction.