Housing evidence / case study · working draft
Sheffield: incentives for priority groups
A published evaluation of verified incentives alongside cessation support explicitly included people living in social housing.
01 / THE APPROACH
What was tried
Sheffield added financial incentives to its existing stop-smoking service for priority groups, including people living in social housing. The scheme ran from October 2024 to March 2025 and offered up to £200 alongside a supported quit attempt and carbon-monoxide-verified milestones.
Participants continued to receive cessation support; the reward was an addition to treatment. The evaluation examined service records and delivery experiences, including the routes partners used to refer people and the practicalities of issuing digital vouchers.
02 / THE FINDINGS
What was learned
For social-housing participants, the report gives twelve-week quit rates of 60% among incentive recipients and 43% among those without incentives. People chose whether to take part, so the groups may have differed in motivation and circumstances.
Partner referrals were lower than expected. Digital access and voucher administration also affected delivery. The case offers useful detail about retaining participants and organising rewards, alongside promising short-term results; it does not prove that incentives caused the full difference in quit rates.
03 / TRANSFER TO WALES
What Wales could learn
The service added vouchers to an existing treatment pathway, with verified milestones. Partners' referral routes, digital access and voucher administration affected how the offer worked.
Referrals were lower than expected. This is practical learning about reaching people and issuing rewards, alongside promising short-term results from self-selected groups.
Sources & review
Public, open-access University of Sheffield report by Woodrow, Hulin and Gillespie, April 2026. Full report checked, particularly pp. 4–8 and methods. Rates describe the report's service cohorts, not all eligible tenants.
