LHSC Nurse Practitioners Amy McCready (left) and Jennifer Moniz (right) help lung, and head and neck cancer patients at the Verspeeten Family Cancer Centre at LHSC access the STOP (Smoking Treatment for Ontario Patients) program from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
May 28, 2026
In May 2025, head and neck cancer patients at the Verspeeten Family Cancer Centre at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) began to have the option to access STOP (Smoking Treatment for Ontario Patients), a smoking cessation program from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). In December 2025, the program expanded to include patients diagnosed with lung cancer at LHSC.
This program supports patients at LHSC after their cancer diagnosis because it is never too late to quit.
Treatment outcomes for those who smoke vs those who do not smoke during treatment
Amy McCready, a Nurse Practitioner in Outpatient Oncology, shares that quitting smoking increases the effectiveness of a patient’s cancer treatment and lowers their risk of dying by approximately 40 per cent, as noted by Cancer Care Ontario.
Jennifer Moniz, another Nurse Practitioner in Outpatient Oncology, adds that for those with head and neck cancers (those that impact the mouth, throat, or voice box), if they successfully quit smoking during their treatments, they have less severe side effects and experience longer survival, less recurrence of the cancer, and less incidences of requiring feeding tubes and tracheostomies.
It is important to note that initiating evidence-based smoking cessation treatment that includes both behavioural interventions (like counselling) and pharmacotherapy (like nicotine replacement therapy) within six months of a cancer diagnosis significantly improves survival.
How to access the STOP program
The STOP program at LHSC consists of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), such as patches, gum, lozenges and inhalers, as well as personalized counselling. Patients receive up to 26 weeks of nicotine replacement therapy and counselling support free of charge. At every four-week interval, the patient comes back to the Verspeeten Family Cancer Centre Pharmacy to check on their progress and receive counselling with their pharmacist and additional NRT as appropriate.
If a patient at LHSC has received a lung or head and neck cancer diagnosis and is interested in quitting smoking, and if they are eligible and interested in counselling to go along with their NRT, then the patient can ask a member of their care team for a referral to the Verspeeten Pharmacy for entry into the STOP program.
McCready notes, “Those interested in the STOP program with pharmacy counselling must live locally to attend follow-up sessions with one of our Verspeeten pharmacists. However, STOP on the Net is available to any individual who wants to quit smoking.”
Criteria information is outlined on the CAMH website.
What is STOP on the Net?
If you are someone who is interested in quitting smoking and do not meet the criteria above, CAMH also offers STOP on the Net, an online program designed to help you quit smoking commercial cigarettes. More information about the STOP program and STOP on the Net is found on the CAMH website.
Other smoking cessation resources
If you are someone who would like to quit smoking, other resources available include:
- Health 811 – A free, secure and confidential service Ontarians can call for non-urgent health questions and concerns, including quit counselling.
- Talk Tobacco - a free confidential program offering culturally appropriate support and information about quitting smoking, vaping and commercial tobacco use to First Nations, Inuit, Métis and urban Indigenous communities.
- A list of other smoking cessation resources is found on the Don’t Quit Quitting – Across Ontario website.