A HARD-HITTING TV advertising campaign is returning to North-East screens after it triggered a big rise in the number of people quitting smoking.

The Every Breath campaign, inspired by the Police’s hit song from the 1980s and personally endorsed by Wallsend-born lead singer Sting was screened in the North-East last autumn.

The advert starts with a young mother and her son and shows, over time, how her health deteriorates so much due to smoking that her adult son becomes her carer .

After it was screened NHS Stop Smoking Services in the region registered a 17 per cent increase in people setting a date to quit smoking.

There was also a 21 per cent rise in North-Easterners making it to week four of their attempt to quit smoking.

A survey after the first screening of the adverts found that more than twothirds of North-East smokers said it made them more likely to quit.

Funded by Fresh, the North-East smoking control office, the TV adverts will run again from August, backed by three new radio adverts that tell the real-life stories of North-East smokers whose health has been ruined by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) caused by smoking.

Christine O’Hara, 54, from Ouston, near Chester-le- Street, County Durham, has been helping to look after her mother, Olive Peake, 77, who was diagnosed with COPD 16 years ago.

She said: “I can remember my mum smoking ever since I was a teenager, but at the time I never really realised the damage that it would do to her health.

“I’ve seen her have attacks where she can’t breathe loads of times, but it never gets less frightening for all of us.

“She panics when this happens, so we have to try to help her through it with medication, drinks or even a nebuliser.”

The North-East has the highest prevalence in England of COPD with about 8,700 diagnosed with the condition in 2008-09 but it is thought about 32,000 more people in the region have the disease but have never been diagnosed.

Cinema-goers in the region will also see a shocking 50- second film which invites them to experience how difficult breathing is in the later stages of COPD.

Professor Paul Corris, a chest specialist at Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust, said the advertising campaign was a remarkable success story.

For more information, go to everybreath.tv or call the National Stop Smoking Helpline on 0800-169-0169.