Bracknell's health chief says work to stop people smoking is far from done, despite figures to the contrary.

In Bracknell Forest, more than three quarters of people (78 per cent) who set a quit date went on to stop smoking in 2015/16, according to figures released by NHS Stop Smoking Services in England.

This is the second highest rate across England.

A significant reason for this is the council's stop smoking services, but Councillor Dale Birch, executive member for adult services, health and housing, said the job was not done yet.

"The amount of people who have stopped smoking - just under 80 per cent - is really good, but we're working on getting it to 100 per cent," he said.

"We want everybody to stop smoking and that will help young people stop smoking too.

"Older people are setting a totally wrong example. We are educating people in behaviour and the consequences of smoking."

Meanwhile, smokers across Reading and Wokingham are also getting much better when it comes to quitting.

Wokingham had the 7th highest stop smoking rate, with 70.5 per cent giving up by their quit date, in West Berkshire 66.3 per cent of people quit ranking the area 10th.

While in Reading 64.6 per cent of smokers kicked the habit after they set a quit date, which ranks the borough as having the 16th highest quit rate in the country.

By comparison, the figures released show half the people attempting to stop succeeded nationally.

Smoking costs the NHS a huge amount of money

Cllr Birch added: "Smoking is a direct cause of so many things.

"If you are a smoker and go into hospital for an operation, your recovery time is delayed because you smoke.

"Your health becomes impaired if you smoke. And even if you sustain a cut it takes longer to heal if you are a smoker.

"It is costing the NHS a huge amount of money because as a smoker it takes longer to recover so it's twice as expensive."

The number of people quitting in Bracknell Forest rose from 71.7 per cent in the previous year.

Cllr Dale Birch called the Royal Borough's decision to launch a judicial review "sad and destructive"
Cllr Dale Birch

He added: "It's about behaviour changes and personal responsibility, not just for your health but your family's too.

"It doesn't need to be over the top, just making sure you are sensible with things.

"The health professionals are not saying we have done it (finished the campaign).

"They are coming back to councillors and asking, what else can we be doing, what is the next initiative to help people?"

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In addition, the number of people nationally setting a quit date has fallen for the fourth consecutive year.

That is partly explained by the fact there are fewer smokers around.

The number of people setting a date dropped from 450,600 in 2014/15 to 382,500 in 2015/16. And the number of successful quitters went from 229,700 in 2014/15 to 195,700 in 2015/16.

Councillor Julian McGhee Sumner, executive member for health and wellbeing at Wokingham Borough Council, said: "Over the last three-and-a-half years, we’ve become the first top-tier authority to bring smoking prevalence down to single figures [9.5 per cent] meaning this habit, which causes so many health harms, and runs from generation to generation, is becoming noticeably rarer and rarer."