Footnotes

• Collaborators This letter is written to be submitted as a pair of letters to the editor in conjunction with 'The Royal Navy Smoking Policy' by Surg Lt K Richardson, Royal Navy, but this letter is the sole work of the author.

• Contributors The author is the sole contributor to this work. The audit data and observational data collected to inform this work were also conducted by the author in his role as medical officer to HMS TRENT.

• Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

• Competing interests None declared.

• Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.