• Over the last 20 years, Reward Gateway | Edenred has supported more than 5 million beneficiaries through public social programmes

Working with Reward Gateway | Edenred, Leicester City Council has created a voucher-based incentive scheme to improve the success rate of its stop smoking programme for pregnant women in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. 

What they needed

In April 2023, the UK Government took advice from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and announced  that all pregnant women who smoke will be offered financial incentives to stop by the end of 2024.

Before this announcement, Leicester City Council and Leicestershire County Council had decided to pilot an incentive scheme.

The councils already operated their Maternity CURE behavioural support service, offering advice on tobacco dependency and free nicotine replacement therapy. They now wanted to create an effective incentive scheme to provide further support for women – especially those living in the most deprived areas who research shows are far more likely to smoke both during early pregnancy and at time of delivery.

How we helped

Leicester City Council created the scheme on behalf of the area in line with NICE guidelines, which recommended the use of vouchers up to the value of £400 based on “validated abstinence from smoking as an effective way to help pregnant women to quit when used alongside behavioural support.” 

Reward Gateway | Edenred has worked closely with the Council to implement the critical voucher element of the programme. Following referral to the scheme, which usually takes place after a hospital appointment or a visit by a community midwife, participating women commit to an initial four-week quit date. They must prove they have stopped throughout the programme by regularly recording a carbon monoxide reading of lower than 4 ppm. The scheme is also open to an additional person to the pregnant woman such as a parent or partner who live in the same household to reduce the impact of secondary smoke. 

The Maternity CURE team then easily distribute the financial rewards in the form of vouchers in stages up to and including three months postnatal. Reward Gateway | Edenred also ensures that the vouchers are ringfenced for food and household goods and cannot be spent on tobacco or alcohol. 

What they achieved

Launching in October 2023, Leicester City Council and Leicestershire County Council have become some of the first areas in the UK to offer incentives for pregnant women to stop smoking in line with NICE guidelines.

So far the council has used the Select platform to distribute around £18,000 worth of vouchers – helping women to protect their own health and decrease the risk of pregnancy complications such as miscarriage, premature birth, stillbirth or a low-birth-weight baby.

The Maternity CURE team reports that the Select platform is easy to use, helping it to ensure that women receive their vouchers quickly to provide them with often much-needed cost of living support.

Having run the campaign for around seven months, the council has now started an interim evaluation to investigate how it is perceived by participants and to assess its short term impact.

In the long run, the council hopes that results will match previous studies which have shown that women who receive incentives are twice as likely to quit successfully throughout pregnancy. And, crucially, remain a non-smoker after they have given birth.  

“We want to offer all pregnant smokers the best chance of becoming and staying smokefree. We know there is evidence that offering incentives as part of the wider behavioural support we provide will help us to achieve that goal, protecting the health of women and their babies. Our partnership with Reward Gateway Edenred has helped us to do that and has become an important part of the Maternity CURE service.”

• Darshna Ruparelia, Project Manager for Maternity CURE, Leicester City Council