A SCHEME to stop pregnant women smoking by giving them shopping vouchers cost taxpayers’ £1,000 and led to 18 mums-to-be quitting.

The Colchester and Tendring Stop Smoking Service initiative saw 18 of the 49 women who took part stay smoke-free for a month.

They were given £60 Co-op vouchers as an incentive.

Health bosses are considering repeating the scheme, which has been described as a total waste of money by the Taxpayers’ Alliance.

Susie Squire, Taxpayers’ Alliance campaign manager, said: “Their own health and that of their child should be enough of an incentive for pregnant women to stop smoking, without any voucher system.

“We’ve got to put the responsibility back on the individual and realise nannying people simply doesn’t work.”

The 18 women who quit will be revisited between January and March next year, and if they are still not smoking they will receive a further £40 of vouchers.

Sue White, from the service, said: “We had a total of 122 referrals and about 40 per cent attended, which doesn’t look like very much. But considering the scheme only cost us £1,080, it’s been money well spent.

“Midwives have told us the women are much more likely to attend regularly if there is an incentive.

“It’s quite hard to evaluate something which only runs for three months, but it is definitely something we would consider doing in future.”

She explained they were expecting to see the number of referrals go up because of improved training for midwives.

Ms White said: “We’ve also got some new leaflets that use really emotive language to tell pregnant women the effect smoking is having on their baby.

“The problem is, a lot of women want to quit and they try to cut down, but they have a ‘nicotine hunger’, which makes quitting really hard.

“That is why we offer them incentives – and it means they have something for the baby.”