The National Health Service has spent almost £500m on services to stop people smoking but with no discernible impact on either the proportion of the adult population that smokes or the numbers smoking.

Since the NHS rolled out its smoking cessation programme in 2001, it claims that almost 1.4m people have given up smoking as a result of the £470m it has spent on stop-smoking clinics, nicotine replacement therapies and the anti-depressant Zyban, which reduces the craving for cigarettes.