A national TV and radio advertising campaign has been launched in the UK to encourage smokers to quit.

Smokers can pick up a new and improved NHS Quit Kit from thousands of pharmacies across England to help them stop smoking.

The campaign aims to increase the number of quit attempts by smokers and to help make them more successful. It will run until March 31st,  2012.

The kit has been developed by experts, smokers and ex-smokers and contains practical tools and advice to help smokers quit smoking for good.

For the first time, it includes a new text support programme to give smokers extra help in those tough first weeks.

Other items include a health/wealth wheel, which helps quitters calculate how much they are saving and the improvements they will see to their health, tips on how to improve and boost willpower, including a quitting planner which helps identify smoking triggers and offers tips on managing cravings, MP3 downloads that are scientifically proven to reduce cravings and a wall chart to map progress. There is even a tangle toy to help keep your hands busy!

For more information and to find participating pharmacy stockists, visit www.nhs.uk/smokefree