IT WAS great to have a chat with Jean last week. She was taking medication for indigestion regularly last year, and her husband Bill was having trouble keeping up with their grandkids when they went to the park for football. She and I were discussing how she and Bill had quit smoking last autumn as part of Stoptober, the annual initiative which encourages people to quit smoking for a month. Apparently if you register with the Stoptober campaign via their website you are five times more likely to successfully quit than someone who doesn’t, and if your partner quits at the same time your are 67 per cent more likely to succeed than if you quit alone, so by quitting together they gave themselves a pretty good chance of success.

It’s a shame that many people who want to quit are afraid to have a go because they have tried in the past and failed. Now there are so many ways that you can help yourself it really is worth having another go.

The newest aid is vaping, or e-cigs, which are designed to deliver clean nicotine to your body in place of the dirty, tar-laden smoke that comes out of a cigarette. We still need more research into e-cigs, and I would like to see a licensed form out too that we can be more sure of, but they certainly seem to be useful in the battle against a smoking habit.

The NHS continues to support quitters with gums, patches, inhalators and one-to-one support from a trained counsellor available from the Worcester Stop Smoking service, accessible at a number of locations around the city, from The Tolly centre in the east to Henwick Halt Pharmacy in the west.

Jean has been able to reduce the number of tablets she takes every day, and Bill still can’t keep up with his grandsons, but at least he is not so far behind as he used to be!

ADRIAN GILES Kitsons Pharmacy, Broad Street Worcester