No Smoking Day 2026

News - 10 March 2026

On No Smoking Day 2026, we are following up on the first 4 recommendations from our Vape Debate report, which was published in June 2025 to coincide with the Government’s Bill banning disposable vapes. Vapes are frequently used as a strategy for adults to quit smoking, but too often, children and young people are starting vaping at a young age, becoming addicted to nicotine, and then considering moving on to smoking.

We received 1500 surveys on this topic, which fed into our report, and as with all our projects Healthwatch Salford follows up with relevant organisations to verify that they have taken the recommended actions. As you can see from the “You said, They did” report there has been some progress made around learning and communication in schools, but there is still more work to do around raising awareness amongst families of the current legislation.

Two of the main concerns from parents who fed back to us on this was around them not understanding the nicotine content in vapes so they could help educate their child, and feeling powerless to do anything about illegal sales of vapes. Healthwatch Salford has therefore produced the attached leaflet which will be circulated to all schools across Salford.

Healthwatch Salford will continue to follow up on the longer term recommendations which came out of the report, and will publish a further update in 2027.

“I previously found out my daughter had been vaping - despite me telling her the consequences and her knowing how much I don't like it. Peer pressure was to blame. It came to light as she started complaining about 'funny pains in her chest' - clearly the impact of too much nicotine - the amount of nicotine in vapes is scary. Once she stopped vaping, the pains went away and have never returned.” 

Anonymous Parent/Carer from the Vape Debate Report

Learn more about our Vape Debate project

You can read the Vape Debate report and our 6-month follow-up report (You Said, They Did) by clicking the link below.

Read the reports

"It's good to see progress has been made on some recommendations; however, children and young people vaping will remain an area of concern for us as an organisation until effective measures are put in place to support and address this. It's accepted that vaping in adults is a helpful tool to quit smoking, but from the feedback we received, some children and young people are using vaping as a gateway to smoking. I stand by my statement that the two situations should not and must not be compared. 

If this is not addressed now, we could be setting our children and young people up for long-term health issues both physically and mentally."

Sam Cook, Chief Executive - Healthwatch Salford

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The Vape Debate logo with an image of three vapes.

The Vape Debate

The prevalence of vaping amongst children and young people nationally has increased exponentially over the last few years, resulting in the new Tobacco and Vapes Bill which is to be introduced on June 1st 2025. Our latest project, The Vape Debate aims to determine the extent of vaping amongst children and young people in Salford, via anonymous surveys, for children, parents and teachers.
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