BOURNEMOUTH is the worst area in the south west for hospital admissions caused by smoking and in the bottom 25 per cent of all health districts when it comes to hospital admissions for this reason, new figures reveal.

An analysis of NHS data showed that the town ranked 128 out of 150 health districts in England, with 2,037 smoking attributable hospital admissions per 100,000 of the population in the last year. The England average is 1,530 hospital admissions per 100,000 which means that more than 500 extra people for every 100,000 of the town’s 187,000 population came through Royal Bournemouth Hospital’s doors last year with smoking-related conditions.

The grim metrics mean that Bournemouth is faring worse than the city of Bristol and its nearest city neighbour, Southampton, where its hospitals see 1,676 smoking attributable admissions for every 100,000 people.

Neighbouring Poole did far better, ranking just outside the top quarter of English health districts at number 44, with 1,349 smoking attributable hospital admissions per 100,000.

And Dorset district fared better still, seeing just 1,190 smoking attributable hospital admissions for the same population measure last year, higher than Hampshire, which had a measure of just 1,056.

Bournemouth’s stats are all the more surprising given the generally excellent levels of health in the east Dorset area.

Christchurch has the lowest proportion of smokers in the UK - fewer than five per cent of people there say they smoke. And neighbouring East Dorset is ranked as the third best place for longevity outside of Greater London for men, with males expected to live 82.9 years.

However, Bournemouth’s smoking prevalence was 14.6 per cent last year in 2018, higher than the south west average of 13.9 per cent.

The data analysis was commissioned by the Vape Club brand, which said that while smoking rates in the UK are declining, hospital admissions related to smoking were rising, and there was a “concerning trend of cuts to smoking cessation services”.  The news comes as Cancer Research revealed that nearly one and a half billion fewer cigarettes have been smoked each year since 2011.

The charity found that average cigarette consumption fell by nearly a quarter between 2011 and 2018, with approximately 118 million fewer cigarettes smoked each month in England.

The team at University College London (UCL) examined cigarette sales data as well as the monthly self-reported cigarette use from more than 135,000 people in the Smoking Toolkit Study.

The study published on Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network Open found the number of self-reported cigarettes smoked monthly declined by nearly a quarter, backed up by sales data showing a 24.1% decrease on average over the seven-year period.

The study’s authors also found the amount of people smoking went down by 15 per cent in the same period, meaning those who continue to smoke are doing so less.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show around 16 per cent of people aged 16 and over smoke.