HEALTH chiefs in the region are to examine the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes as a way to stop people smoking.

A meeting hosted by campaign group Fresh and involving council and NHS representatives plans to explore the latest evidence on e-cigarettes and how the devices have helped some people to quit.

About seven per cent of North-East adults use e-cigarettes with three quarters of that figure using them to stop smoking.

In August an independent review published by Public Health England concluded that e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful to health than tobacco and have the potential to help smokers quit smoking.

It said e-cigarettes were 95 per cent less harmful than smoking since they do not contain tar and carbon monoxide.

There was also no evidence so far that electronic cigarettes were acting as a route into tobacco smoking for children or non-smokers

Ailsa Rutter, director of Fresh, said: “This event is aimed at looking how we reduce smoking even further, especially among people who have found it hard to quit.

“No-one would claim electronic cigarettes are 100 per cent risk free, but the current evidence indicates they are much safer than tobacco.

“These devices are still new and in the future we hope we will see even more effective products with more guarantees about safety. We understand some people may still have concerns, and we want to explore these as well.”

There are now about 2.6m e-cigarette users in the UK, compared to about nine million tobacco users.