14th September 2023 Seminars

This will cover key policy announcements and developments in delivering the Government’s ambition to be Smokefree by 2030.

NHS England is currently implementing a comprehensive programme to treat tobacco dependency in hospitals and maternity services as part of the NHS Long Term Plan. Substantial progress has been made, especially with a seamless treatment pathway between NHS services and community stop smoking services. More needs to be done to embed these services including data collection, to assess their impact and support long term sustainability.

Synopsis coming soon

Thousands of people continue to die from wholly preventable tobacco related disease each year. The addiction to tobacco leads to poverty, ill-health and additional demand on healthcare services. The NHS has a key role in tackling tobacco addiction and sustaining our recently implemented hospital services. This can be achieved through collaborative working between NHS and Public Health teams, a relentless focus on health inequalities and optimising treatment pathways.

Despite the widely understood health risks associated with smoking, smoking cessation can be challenging both for individuals looking to quit, and for the healthcare professionals looking to support their patients. In this presentation Dr Alan Curley will share his experiences of treating nicotine addiction, and the use of behavioural support conversations along with NRT to help patients quit. Presentation may also contain promotional information.

This presentation will provide a summary of the key findings from a recent randomised control trial comparing the safety and effectiveness of electronic cigarettes and NRT in helping pregnant smokers to quit.

An overview of the NLaG’s Tobacco Dependency Treatment Support services presence within the Targeted Lung Health Check programme. The NHS’s groundbreaking contribution to the Long Term plans objectives to improve early diagnosis and survival for those diagnosed with cancers, has now cultivated the opportunity to introduce the pioneering service to support all eligible local people.

Smokefree policies and tobacco dependency services aim to reduce health inequalities associated with smoking and mental health. Reducing Restrictive Practice (RRP) interventions in mental health settings aim to enhance patient safety and experience, and reduce incidences of violence and aggression towards staff. There are often tensions when balancing smokefree priorities with adopting least restrictive practices. For example, incidences of violence and aggression towards ward staff have occurred in the course of maintaining smokefree wards raising anxieties from ward teams about their roles in maintaining smokefree environments. In this session, we reflect upon our experiences of working in often complex and challenging environments and the issues faces when balancing the wants and needs of Treating Tobacco Dependency Teams, ward staff and patients.

An open discussion forum on the confusing and often conflicting messages on being a smokefree mental health hospital.

In April this year the government made a commitment that all pregnant women who smoke would be offered financial incentives as part of their stop smoking support by December 2024. A new national financial incentive scheme is in development and this presentation will cover key aspects of programme and an outline of proposed operation.  The new scheme will be based on NICE guidance, using outcomes from research trials and informed by the experience of existing schemes around the country.

COSTED is an NIHR funded multi-centre randomised, controlled trial (ClinicalTrial.gov: NCT04854616) which has recruited 972 participants from six Emergency Departments across the UK. Participants were randomised to control (written information about local stop smoking services) or intervention (brief smoking cessation intervention from a trained advisor, provision of an e-cigarette starter kit, training on its use and referral to local stop smoking services). Both groups were followed up 1, 3 and 6 months after randomisation. Smoking abstinence was biochemically verified at 6 months. we will report biochemically verified quit rates between groups (primary outcome), self-reported point prevalence by group and changes to number of cigarettes per day between the groups. We will also present the results of the economic evaluation and a synopsis of the results of the process evaluation.

This presentation will expand upon the E burns journey in helping Prison services and Mental Health Trusts to become smokefree.

Darren is a former senior officer of His Majesty's Prison Service with 19 years experience. Surprisingly the E burn idea came to him whilst playing a game of poker at a friends house back in late 2014. He knew the prison service needed to introduce a smoke free policy. He watched a friend vape whilst playing poker and realised that was the answer that the prison service needed to solve it's smoke free goals.  For a secure environment the vaping device needed to be disposable and have additional security and safety features.

In addition to the prison service the NHS mental health units also faced similar challenges in achieving their smoke free goals. E burn started to gain a lot of traction in the metal health settings even with Trusts that were initially very cautious of vaping as an alternative to tobacco smoking. E-burn soon became the number one go to solution for over 70 Mental Health Trusts as well as the private sector, because of its safety and security features.

The CURE Project is a hospital-based tobacco dependency service, first introduced in the UK in Greater Manchester. The study highlighted the need for good communications between secondary and primary care.

In 2022, PharmaStrat was commissioned by the Birmingham CURE Project team to introduce inpatient smoking cessation treatments to the three largest UHB hospital sites. The aim of the programme was to identify all active smokers admitted to secondary care and to provide these patients with behavioural support and pharmacotherapy during their inpatient stay and post-discharge.

The presentation comprises an overview of the operation to date. It also details key learnings about patient engagement and pharmacotherapy offerings.

Insights into how an 'In-House SiP Model’ has introduced vapes successfully to pregnant smokers and their significant others as part of the standard treatment programme.

Rates of smoking in NHS staff are often higher than those in the general population. NHS staff in Manchester were offered six months' free access to the Smoke Free app, plus 12-weeks' supply of a vape and/or nicotine replacement therapy. Three hundred staff were recruited, many of whom came from the most deprived areas in Manchester. We report the 4-week and 12-week outcomes from the evaluation, along with programme satisfaction ratings and lessons learned from using digital technologies to deliver prevention at scale.

This is a piece of work in collaboration with the AAC in looking at how we can improve asthma in Children and Young People. The Core 20 Plus 5 approach in making improvements within health inequalities, and this project aims to reduce Asthma exacerbation requiring hospital visits by tackling direct and indirect childhood smoking.

The Cannabis And Tobacco Cessation Advice (CATCA) study aimed to identify the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of stop smoking practitioners when supporting tobacco cessation among smokers who also use cannabis. The research team conducted an online survey and qualitative interviews with stop smoking practitioners and found that only a small percentage of practitioners always/often asked clients about cannabis use and referred them to specialist cannabis services. Practitioners' confidence and having recording systems in place for cannabis use increased the likelihood of intervening. Lack of training, privacy concerns, and impact on therapeutic relationships were identified as potential barriers. This presentation will highlight the need for training and adequate recording systems to facilitate the provision of support for co-users of cannabis and tobacco.

A summary of a new programme of work being carried out at the University of Oxford investigating ways to encourage more people to quit smoking through existing financial support services, such as social housing providers. Opportunistic brief advice has been found to result in more quit attempts when delivered in clinical settings; however, is it feasible and acceptable when delivered in other settings?

The community pharmacy NHS SCS was launched in March 2022 with the intention of introducing capacity to the system and choice for patients wanting to continue a quit attempt post discharge. This presentation is intended to offer an update on the national roll out and discuss some of the challenges encountered.   

Elizabeth Woodworth (ABL Health Limited) and Richard Holley (North and West Northamptonshire Council) will be sharing their experiences of including e-cigarettes as part of their local stop smoking service offer. Attendees will learn how and why both services embraced harm reduction, how successful their efforts were, and how each service overcame barriers to implementation.

In more than 5 years of working directly with quit services, we have developed several service models. One particular Local Authority has moved from a successful charity funded pilot programme to a full roll-out across their communities, and in that time has used no less than four different service models. The relative strengths and limitations of the different models are compared, with specific emphasis on their applicability to communities, and across diverse demographics from relatively dense urban populations, to more sparsely populated rural areas. The models used have included Direct Supply, Online Voucher Redemption, In-Store Voucher Redemption, and Service Purchase/Client Receipt. A further challenge was added by launching some of these initiatives during a pandemic, with a need to provide guidance and support for a large number of (sometimes initially skeptical) quit advisors.

Like other areas of the country, Blackpool has seen a significant increase in the levels of vaping and e-cigarette use in recent years with anecdotal feedback suggesting that vaping prevalence was much higher than the national data, particularly amongst children and young people. In response to this, Healthwatch Blackpool were commissioned by Public Health at Blackpool Council to better understand vaping behaviours within the population, gathering views primarily from young people, alongside teachers & professionals and parent & carers. A survey and subsequent focus groups were conducted, designed to collect information on usage, attitudes, access, safety and availability, whilst providing an in-depth understanding of local experiences. Between November 2022 and March 2023, Healthwatch Blackpool collected feedback from 4,170 local children and young people on the topic of vaping. This presentation highlights the key themes surrounding vaping from local young people living in Blackpool.

The creation and development of an independent and bespoke vaping offer adapted for the needs and requirements of healthcare services, followed by a case study from LSCFT on the relaunch of Smoke Free.

1. Caitlin Barry 'Working Towards a Smokefree NHS Workforce in NENC'
2. Kate Frazer 'Embedding Patient and Public Involvement in co-designing a smoking cessation pathway for people who smoke and are diagnosed with cancer'
3. Kirsty Soar 'Lessons learnt from Project SCeTCH: a multi-centre cluster randomised controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of e-cigarettes compared with usual care for smoking cessation in those accessing homeless services'
4. Rachel McIlvenna 'A multi-strand approach to treating tobacco dependency in the North East & North Cumbria (NENC)'

A summary of the impact smoking has on health inequalities and the importance of supporting smoking cessation in the charge to reduce health inequalities.

The presentation will cover how the North East is working collectively to maximise opportunities to increase quitting at scale and to deliver an effective evidence based tobacco control approach which puts people who smoke at the core of its plan.

Tobacco smoking is a leading cause of poor health outcomes and inequalities amongst people experiencing extensive health and social needs (e.g., homelessness, substance dependencies). A long-lived perception exists that individuals living with such needs do not engage in health services and as such, are described as ‘hard to reach’, ‘disengaged’ or ‘unimotivated’. This talk highlights why these descriptors are not grounded in evidence.  It will also highlight how we can maximise existing opportunities to offer cessation support, including how tobacco harm reduction approaches are central to reducing smoking and will help to reduce inequalities.