What the Business Does
Smoking Pack Years is a free calculator, created by retired GP Dr Nigel Masters and respiratory nurse Catherine Tutt, that turns a person’s lifetime tobacco use into a single pack years figure. Clinicians use it to record smoking history and patients use it before a lung health check, helped by an AI chat assistant. We designed, host and manage it.
One pack year is 20 cigarettes a day for one year. Working that out by hand is awkward when someone has smoked different amounts, or different types of tobacco, over the years, so the calculator does the sum. It converts cigars, cigarillos, pipes, bidis, loose tobacco and waterpipe sessions into cigarette equivalents, using figures set out with their sources on the References page.
The calculator was created by Dr Nigel Masters and Catherine Tutt, and was highly commended for Best use of Media and Technology in the GP Enterprise Awards 2012. Dr Masters described it in a letter to the British Journal of General Practice in 2020.
It was built for clinicians at a desktop. Lung cancer screening now brings patients to the site too, often on a phone, so the site now has pages for both: guidance for GPs, nurses and screening teams, and plain-English help for anyone invited to a lung health check.
Visit the website: www.smokingpackyears.com
What the Website Offers
- Work out pack years step by step, with a running total and a breakdown by type of tobacco.
- Download the result as a PDF, email it, print it or save it as a link.
- Use the clinician version for a line to paste into EMIS or SystmOne, with years smoked and the date stopped.
- Add the calculator to another organisation’s website with a short embed code.
- Read the instructions, the FAQs answered by Dr Masters and Catherine Tutt, and the references behind the conversion figures.
- Read guidance on lung screening and news on topics such as recording vaping.
- Ask the AI chat assistant a question at any time.
- Contact Dr Masters or Catherine Tutt by phone, email or the contact form.
The Tools It Uses
Customised AI chat assistant. A chat bar on every page, trained on the website’s own content. It answers visitors’ questions about using the calculator and the site’s guidance, such as how to enter roll-ups or how to prepare for a lung health check.
Step-by-step pack year calculator. Visitors tick the types of tobacco smoked, enter how much and for how many years, and add a new period whenever the amount changed. It works out pack years exactly as the original calculator did, which we checked across 20,000 test cases.
Results to keep and share. Results can be downloaded as a PDF, emailed, printed or saved as a link. Answers stay in the browser, and a PDF or email is made once and then discarded.
Clinician mode and embed code. A clinician page gives a record line to paste into EMIS or SystmOne and a print layout, and an embed code lets practices and screening services put the calculator on their own sites with no tracking cookies.
Pages written for AI search. Every key page opens with a short answer-first summary and closes with FAQs and a next step, and an llms.txt file lists the main pages for AI search tools.
AI Website Health Check and monthly AI website management. We ran an AI Website Health Check and carried out its recommendations with Dr Masters’ answers to our questions. Each month we re-check the site and review its Google rankings.
How We Help
We designed and host the website, and in October 2026 we gave it a full redesign and a new step-by-step calculator, after carrying out the recommendations of its AI Website Health Check. Smoking Pack Years is on our monthly AI website management: each month we re-check the site and review its Google rankings.
Read more about our AI Website Health Check, ongoing AI website management and the customised AI chat assistant.
Next step: your own website
Want the same for your own website? Ask for your AI Website Health Check and we will show you what your website needs, or see more of the websites we look after.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a pack year?
One pack year is 20 cigarettes a day for one year, which is 7,300 cigarettes. The Smoking Pack Years calculator first converts cigars, pipes, loose tobacco and other types into cigarettes, using the figures on its References page, then adds up each period of smoking.
Is anything typed into the Smoking Pack Years calculator stored?
No. Answers stay in the browser. If you download or email a PDF, the answers are used once to make it and are not kept. The embedded version on other websites sets no tracking cookies.
Can clinicians add the result to the patient record?
Yes. The clinician version gives a line to paste into EMIS or SystmOne, with pack years, each type of tobacco, years smoked and the date stopped, plus a PDF to attach. A practice can also add the calculator to its own website with the embed code.
Who looks after the Smoking Pack Years website?
Independent Web Marketing designed and hosts the site, redesigned it in October 2026 with a new step-by-step calculator, and manages it every month with a fresh AI Website Health Check and a rankings review.
Key Takeaways
- A free tool that does an awkward sum well can serve clinicians and patients for years.
- Building for phones as well as desktops matters once a new audience starts arriving.
- Results people can download, email or paste into a record make a calculator part of the clinical workflow.
- An embed code lets other organisations spread a useful tool for you.
- The AI chat assistant answers questions about using the calculator from the website’s own content.