Although smoking rates among the general population continue to fall, they have remained disproportionately high among people with lived experience of mental health challenges. Mental Health Ireland, the HSE Tobacco Free Ireland Programme and people with lived experience of mental health challenges worked together to identify innovative ways to tackle this growing health inequality. The consensus is that this requires a social movement across the whole system. In July 2019, we hosted the first National Conversation Café: Smoking, Mental Health and Recovery in order to have an open, honest and direct conversation where all perspectives on this issue were articulated and recorded. More than 70 stakeholders from lived experience of mental health challenges, services providers, supporters, smokers and ex-smokers came together on an equal footing, in the spirit of co-production, to tell the story of how things are now in terms of smoking and mental health and to contribute to a solution-focused plan for the future.
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