Gary Burroughs
Lincolnshire Tobacco Control Strategy Manager,
Lincolnshire Public Health Network
Tel: 01522 550676
Email: gary.burroughs@lincolnshire.gov.uk
Summary:
Following the success of Phoenix’s 2004 Calendar ‘Call it Quits’ media Campaign, Phoenix NHS Stop Smoking Service & Smoke Free Lincs Alliance again engaged with the health community throughout Lincolnshire to promote the 2005 National No Smoking Day countywide. Phoenix & Smoke Free Lincs Alliance staff, police, fire brigade, local midwives, health visitors, pharmacists, MOD staff, Prison staff, Schools and all Lincolnshire’s Sure Starts worked together to roll out the most effective and comprehensive National No Smoking Day event in England. Out of 4 National No Smoking Day awards, the Phoenix/Alliance event won 2 (other was best picture opportunity.
Abstract:
The Phoenix NHS Stop Smoking Service and the Smoke Free Lincs Alliance wanted to coordinate the best and largest National No Smoking Day (NNSD) event of in the country. This would involve developing far more links to other NHS and non-NHS organisations and bodies with coterminous interest around smoking cessation, harm reduction, prevention and wider tobacco issues. Phoenix and the Alliance would also hope to build on the success of the work Phoenix undertook the previous year with Yorkshire Television ‘Calendar Call it Quits.’ (A finalist at Building on Success). Lessons and experiences gained from this would drive the media element of the event to assist the coordination of a far more expansive event.
All partners embraced this event and their involvement was coordinated through the Alliance. The Alliance, building on the previous year’s event added new members who all contributed to the success of the day. These members included; All GP surgeries, health centre, dentists, pharmacies, HM prisons, Ministry of Defence, schools/colleges/universities, Lincolnshire NHS, multi-use centres, voluntary sector, citizens advice bureau, libraries, All Sure Starts, Emergency services, many workplaces, local/district authorities, Lincolnshire’s media and the famous Red Arrows.
Many patients/clients benefited as the No Smoking Day message was communicate to every part of Lincolnshire with many smokers making immediate quit attempts and many more contemplating the message for the future. Many more signed up to Lincolnshire’s Smoke free Homes (pledging to restrict smoking within the home & a Building on Success finalist). Clients who had previously been engaged by Phoenix were offered invitations, as champions, to attend individual events which many did. They took the opportunity to share their experiences of smoking cessation services with other Lincolnshire people. Hundreds of clients also participated and gave their views on wider tobacco issues such as workplace/public place smoking which were fed into the consultation. (Health Improvement & Protection Bill) & influenced strategy & service developments.
Many of the staff involved gained invaluable project development skills. Other staff such as NHS professionals, youth/social workers and Local Authority staff have since received accredited training from Phoenix to enable them to engage, identify and signpost motivated smokers to both Phoenix and Smoke free Homes.Compared to the previous 2004 No Smoking Day Dept of Health targets, there was a general increase in all areas to over 75%. One of the events priorities was pregnant smokers. By targeting this client group through Sure Starts, midwives and the use of the Phoenix/Alliance trailer, there was an increase of over 300% quitting. Many new sites were added to the Phoenix network as a consequence of the raising the profile of the work we do countywide.
The new sites have been recruited and are providing a local service. This allows for more availability and easier access which have been previously identified barriers to quitting. The profile of our work has also been raised due to National recognition which has encouraged more people to seek our support.
The whole event was countywide and fully inclusive. Information was provided in other languages such as Portuguese and the large Portuguese population of Boston & South Holland were engaged through Boston Sure Start who have developed excellent community links.
This work and how it was coordinated it has been communicated across the region and highlighted at the National No Smoking Day Awards where Phoenix/Alliance where presented with 2 out of the 4 awards. The Phoenix Workplace Specialist and Lincolnshire Smoke free Homes Manager also travelled to Ireland to support similar work they plan to undertake there next year. (Our staff were guests of the Irish Health Board Nov 05) This success will be build upon in next year’s event when we plan to add more partners to work together on an even better event. There have also been many lessons learnt that we will not be replicating in 2006.
The best and most satisfying feature is that we were able to coordinate a National event that would be recognised as being far larger and more innovative and imaginative than any other in England.
Compared to previous events, this represents a massive advance not just in smoking cessation but also public health as the model is easily transferable. Many of the partners working on together on this National event are based at Healthy Communities at is a very good example of effective and efficient partnership work.
The outcome in terms of increased smoking cessation activity enabled the Phoenix NHS Stop Smoking Service to not only reach the Dept of Health quit targets, but also to engage with many of the hard to reach groups previously neglected. Much of the cost of the event was shared with the partners all contributing something. We now look forward to next years National No Smoking Day event knowing that if 2006’s is as good then Phoenix will again reach their challenging targets and all Lincolnshire’s population who smoke, will receive support if required.
In uncertain financial times, Phoenix and the Alliance staff have been further motivated by this success when a lot of other service staff have struggled.
This work has not been entered in any other award other than the National No Smoking Day awards where it won ‘best overall activity in England’ & ‘Best picture opportunity.’
