NICE Approved Non-pharmacological Stop Smoking Seminars

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   Oxfordshire County Council have awarded a contract following Direct Award Process A of the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023. For the avoidance of doubt, the Public Contract Regulations 2015 and the Procurement Act 2023 do not apply to this award. Providing a non-pharmacological or drug free, one-off seminar to support people to quit will give service users another method of quitting.

   This style of support has been included as a recommendation in NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) guideline 209 .

   The NICE guidelines outline best-practice for providing support to smokers, and place particular emphasis on the breadth of support offered - quitting smoking is not a 'one size fits all' and therefore we must incorporate as many different approaches into our offer as possible, to ensure all service users have access to a technique that will work for them.

   The Allen Carr in-person seminars are recommended as an additional treatment option for adults who want to give up smoking. Multiple randomised control trials have evidenced the efficacy of the offer, which has the potential to elicit similar quit rates to NRT and vapes. It is important to note that the NICE recommendation is not for a generic stop-smoke seminar and specifies Allen Carr's Easyway (ACE) only.

   The ability to manage a quit in just one 5-6 hour session, will also allow many routine and manual workers, who do not always work traditional hours, to engage in the service at a time to suit their needs. Routine and manual works have a higher prevalence of smoking in Oxfordshire, currently 15.3% (APS, 2023) and are a priority group for the service and the Council's tobacco control strategy.

   This proposed service is a relevant health service, delivered directly to individuals, falling under the Healthcare Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023 (PSR). The main CPV code is 85100000-0. The contract commenced on 1 April 2025 and will expire on 31 March 2026.

   The contract will provide 140 places to people who live and work in Oxfordshire. The decision to award was taken by Ansaf Azhar, Director of Public Health and Communities.