SmokeFree NHS

Why are we going smokefree? 

Smoking has devastating consequences for individuals and their families and it remains the largest cause of ill health and premature death in South Tyneside and Sunderland.  

This puts immense pressure on local NHS services with one in three hospital beds occupied by someone who smokes who will often need to stay in hospital for longer. 

Across South Tyneside and Sunderland, smoking costs the NHS around £22.7m. 

• South Tyneside - £7.8m
• Sunderland - £14.9m

Exposure to secondhand smoke causes disease and premature death among non-smokers and even brief exposure can cause immediate harm.

As an NHS organisation, we have a duty to protect and care for both the mental and physical health of our patients, our colleagues and visitors.
This means that supporting smokers to stop smoking is central to the work of all our staff. 

Our decision to go smokefree is also in line with The Health Act (2006) and The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) 2013 guidelines which state that all hospital sites should be 100% smokefree.

What does this mean for me? 

Being smokefree means that we are creating a healthier environment for everyone who visits our sites, whether you are a patient, a visitor or a colleague. 

We recognise that smoking is highly addictive and many people find it extremely hard to stop, even when they want to. Part of our smokefree commitment is to provide patients and colleagues with the tools and support they need to help them stop smoking if they choose to make a quit attempt. 

In practice this means:  

• Starting conversations with patients about smoking
• Offering Nicotine Replacement Therapy to all smokers on admission 
• Offering our patients very brief advice on how we can support them to quit smoking and informing them of the specialist support that is readily available at our Trust 
• Encouraging smokers to take up the help and advice available through our stop smoking services.

We want you to feel supported and confident enough to take more active responsibility for talking to patients and visitors about our ambition for a smoke-free environment.

This video features some of our colleagues explaining why it's important for our patients and visitors not to smoke on our sites and enouraging them to take up help and advice where appropriate.  

Our environment 

To achieve our goal of becoming a smokefree organisation it is vital that we take every possible step to discourage smoking.

That’s why we have introduced a new tannoy system at our two main hospital sites that allows you to press a button in the foyer to activate a voice message which can be heard loud and clear, outside our main hospital entrances asking smokers to extinguish their cigarettes. 

As part of our commitment to become Smokefree, from October 2020 we will also be removing designated smoking areas like smoking shelters from all of our sites.

We are now a smokefree organisation; this means that our patients, carers, colleagues and all other visitors to our sites are not allowed to smoke anywhere in the grounds and this includes within vehicles on out sites. We are committed to providing a healthy environment for everyone and we need your help to support this.

Reporting onsite smoking incidents on DATIX

As well as using the tannoy systems if you see people smoking around our main hospital entrances, these incidents should also be reported on the DATIX system (click here for screenshots).

If you have any queries about the Trust’s smokefree vision, please email STSFTprevention@nhs.net 
For further advice and support to stop smoking contact:

• Patients from South Tyneside can refer themselves to the Change4Life Stop Smoking Service by calling 0191 424 7300
• Patients from Sunderland –can call the Sunderland NHS Specialist Stop Smoking Service on 0800 169 9913.

Or you can call the national NHS Smoking Helpline number 0300 123 1044

Brief Interventions programme 

This e-learning programme focuses on two brief interventions that are recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence for delivery in secondary care:

1. Very Brief Advice on Smoking
2. Alcohol Brief Advice.

Alcohol misuse and smoking are among the most significant risk factors contributing to ill health. In England, more than one in four people drink alcohol at levels that increase their risk of health harm, and about 16% of people smoke (Public Health England). Many of these people are frequent users of hospitals, which provides a great opportunity for healthcare professionals to talk to them about their drinking and smoking, and how their health could benefit from making changes.

The programme is intended to provide healthcare professionals with the minimum level of knowledge and skill needed to confidently and effectively identify risk and provide brief advice to patients who smoke or who are drinking at a level that could be harming them.

• Please click here for more information

Very Brief Advice

This short film demonstrates how simple brief interventions to change smoking behaviour can be. Please watch this film as it powerfully demonstrates the capacity and effectiveness of Very Brief Advice on smoking to change lives. 

• 30 seconds to save a life

Vaping: Getting the most out of being vape friendly

More information coming soon

We have produced some frequently asked questions which we hope you find helpful. If you can't find the answer in these documents then please email any questions to: stsft.prevention@nhs.net

• Frequently Asked Questions for staff
• Frequently Asked Questions for public/patients
• Frequently Asked Questions - e-cigarettes 

Nicotine Replacement Therapy

This is an important treatment pathway where the aim is to treat all patients who are admitted that smoke with nicotine replacement therapy and refer for on-going treatment in the community upon discharge. The health benefits of this approach are proven. The plan is to learn from the pilot and roll out the treatment pathway to all wards in the Trust on all out hospital sites. This is our first step in establishing an in-hospital prevention programme for the Trust. We will be providing more information on the Trust’s plan to begin implementing a Trust wide Health and Wellbeing Strategy from 1st April 2020.

• In-Patient Nicotine Withdrawal Management Guideline
• Nicotine Replacement Therapy Information Booklet
• In-patient Management of Nicotine Addiction Guideline

Stop Smoking Service Referral

For patients from South Tyneside

Please refer patients to the Change4Life Stop Smoking Service. When referring patients to Change4Life can you please use the referrer code:  B88014 to identify that they are Ward Nurse referrals associated to the pilot.

For patients from Sunderland

Sunderland NHS Specialist Stop Smoking Service is a new service which offers free, friendly, confidential support and advice to help people stop smoking.

The service is provided by Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust on behalf of Sunderland City Council. It builds on support which is already available through places like GPs and community pharmacies and means that smokers in the city who want to quit have more options available to help them than ever before. The service will be providing one to one support to patients who want specialist support to stop smoking.

• Sunderland NHS Specialist Stop Smoking Service Referral Form

#Quitforcovid helping our patients to stop smoking

Quitting is one of the best ways you can reduce the risk from COVID-19.  Stopping smoking might not change the structure of the lungs if they are damaged, but it quite quickly changes inflammation levels and elasticity, which mean that the flow of oxygen into the blood is significantly more efficient within weeks.  That could be critical for getting over COVID-19. It is therefore vitally important that we continue to help smokers to quit, providing medication and support to smokers who access NHS services as per NICE PH48. 

Preliminary research is showing that smokers who contract COVID-19 have more severe symptoms, are more likely to have complications, require a greater level of care, more likely to be admitted to an intensive care unit and need mechanical ventilation and sadly die than non-smokers.

Exposure to second-hand smoke is also likely to exacerbate the risks from coronavirus, alongside the other harms it causes. Therefore, smokers who are self-isolating and are not able to go outside to smoke should have access to alternative forms of nicotine such as Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) or e-cigarettes to protect the people around them from harm.

A Smokefree policy is much more than banning smoking on hospital grounds.  It is about improving the health of patients, by identifying patients who smoke, by helping smokers to realise the consequences of tobacco on their health, and offering them practical support and treatment to quit.

Patient Support

Sunderland

Sunderland Specialist Stop Smoking Service are continuing to provide advice and support to patients who wish to stop smoking over the Telephone. Initial contact will be made and a voucher for supply of appropriate NRT can be posted to the patient with weekly telephone follow up for support.

Contact Numbers

Office Monday – Friday 0191 5671057

Mobile Tuesday - Thursday- 07967814271

South Tyneside

South Tyneside Local Authority are continuing to provide advice and support to patients who wish to stop smoking over the telephone and are also able to provide NRT for temporary abstinence for those self-isolating/shielding with deliveries via pharmacies or the Community Support Hub (for more vulnerable patients)

Change for Life -  0191 424 7300

Our decision to go Smokefree supports the implementation of The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE PH48) guidelines which state that all hospital sites should be 100% smokefree.

The NHS Long Term Plan published January 2019 sets out a number of ambitions including, Preventing illness and tackling health inequalities. The NHS will increase its contribution to tackling some of the most significant causes of ill health, including new action to help people stop smoking, overcome drinking problems and avoid Type 2 diabetes, with a particular focus on the communities and groups of people most affected by these problems.

If you want to know more about the NHS Long Term Plan, visit: https://www.longtermplan.nhs.uk/