A NEW anti-smoking service has helped scores of east Durham people give up the deadly habit.

Between January and March 2001, 234 people from the Easington area stopped smoking for four weeks.

A year later, more than half of the quitters were contacted and 52 per cent of those were still off cigarettes.

The ex-smokers have all been helped by a special service provided by Easington Primary Care Trust.

It offers easy access to support and advice to smokers wishing to quit.

All GP surgeries in east Durham now offer smoking cessation clinics which offer either a one-to-one service or group sessions.

Support and advice is also available in community settings such as pharmacies in Seaham, Murton and Easington Colliery as well as Wingate family centre.

A further new feature of the service is supporting employees in their place and work and a specialist advisor has been employed to develop this area of support.

An out-of-hours group run fortnightly at Peterlee Community College from 5.30pm to 6.30pm is also open to anyone.

Eve Wouldhave, specialist smoking cessation advisor for the trust, said: "We are delighted with the success of the Smoking Cessation Service in Easington.

"There was a 400 per cent increase in the number of people that quit for four weeks during January to March 2002, compared with the same period last year.

"We aim to give people the best possible chance of quitting smoking and therefore surgeries are not prescribing nicotine replacement therapy without putting support systems into place first.''

Anyone wanting to stop smoking should contact their local surgery or Eve Wouldhave on 0191-586 6661