NHS Coventry and Warwickshire has made major progress and is among those leading the way in reducing smoking in pregnancy after recent figures were revealed by NHS Digital.
The national data reveals that 6.1% of pregnant women and birthing people were recorded as smoking at the time of giving birth in 2024/25, meeting the national target of 6% for the first time since it was set in the 2017 Tobacco Control Plan for England.
NHS Coventry and Warwickshire is one of four Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in the Midlands to have achieved the target.
The change is significant at George Eliot Hospital (GEH) in the north of Warwickshire, where smoking rates at the time of delivery have more than halved since 2020/21, falling from 13.8% to an average of 6.3% between April 2024 and March 2025.
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) has also achieved its lowest SATOD (Smoking at Time of Delivery) percentages in recent years, supported by strong collaboration with the Coventry and Warwickshire Stop Smoking in Pregnancy teams.
The improvements have been driven by the commitment of local maternity and public health teams.
This includes the Public Health Midwife at GEH, Vivienne Ficarra, the hospital-based tobacco dependency advisor, and the stop smoking advisors based in the north of Warwickshire and Coventry. Their work has been supported by a wider programme of activity across the region to reduce health inequalities during pregnancy.
This programme includes several years of focused activity overseen by the Local Maternity and Neonatal System, supported by the Smoke Free Coventry and Warwickshire partnership. Key initiatives between 2021 and 2024 included:
- Ethnographic research in the north of Warwickshire, working directly with families to better understand the challenges around quitting smoking in pregnancy, with findings used to shape local services.
- A vape pilot aimed at supporting pregnant smokers, evaluated by Coventry University. This positioned Warwickshire’s services to be early adopters of the national Swap to Stop scheme. Coventry has since expanded the scheme into its own maternity services.
- The Love Your Bump campaign – a joint effort across Coventry and Warwickshire, combining outdoor advertising in targeted areas with digital promotion on social media.
Cllr Anne-Marie Sonko, Portfolio Holder for Adult Social Care and Health at Warwickshire County Council, commented: “It is fantastic to see a significant decrease in the number of people smoking at the time of giving birth. This is a testament to the success of the initiatives from our maternity teams and the wider Smoke Free Coventry and Warwickshire partnership.
“Stopping smoking in pregnancy is one of the best things you can do to give your baby the best possible start in life, and I encourage anyone considering quitting while pregnant to speak with their midwife about the free and confidential support available.”
Further work is under way to continue helping more people to stop smoking in pregnancy.
Maternity services in Coventry have already introduced the national Maternity Incentive Scheme for smoking cessation, and the Warwickshire stop smoking team is now fully embedded in maternity care and set to adopt the scheme from autumn 2025.
This will ensure that pregnant women and birthing people across Coventry and Warwickshire continue to receive consistent and high-quality support to quit.
As part of this ongoing development, Charlotte Hands, Public Health Midwife at UHCW, is piloting a new project to refer women to stop smoking in pregnancy services earlier – before their first booking appointment. This early referral approach aims to reach people sooner and further improve outcomes for families across the region.
Cllr Kamran Caan, Cabinet Member for Public Health and Sport at Coventry City Council, added: “These are really encouraging figures for the region and it’s great to see different areas in the Coventry and Warwickshire area learning from their successes.
“I hope that some of these newer schemes, like the Maternity Incentive Scheme, prove to have a longer-term impact.
“Anyone who makes a commitment to quitting smoking is making a big step and they need to know that support is here for them.”
To find out more about quitting smoking in pregnancy and access free support, visit smokefreecw.co.uk/ssip.