Hospital patients to be offered support to tackle tobacco addiction

Patients will be offered free specialist support to manage tobacco addiction when they are admitted to The Royal Oldham Hospital.

It's part of a project called CURE, which is seen as integral in achieving the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership's Making Smoking History programme to reduce smoking rates across the region by a third to 13 per cent by the end of 2021 and to five per cent by 2027. This would be faster than any other major global city and mean 115,000 fewer smokers by 2021. 

Greater Manchester's Cancer Alliance is now leading the rollout of CURE - a comprehensive tobacco addiction treatment programme - in a further seven hospitals from this week - including The Royal Oldham Hospital. 

Smoking tobacco is the single biggest cause of preventable death (one in two smokers die due to their smoking), illness, disability and social inequality in the United Kingdom. Stopping smoking is the single greatest thing that can be done to improve a smoker’s health now and in the future.

Acute hospitals say they see a concentrated population of smokers due to the illnesses caused by smoking, meaning hospitals provide an opportunity to offer highly effective treatment and support for smokers to stop.

Anyone who is admitted to The Royal Oldham Hospital, who is identified as a smoker, will be referred to the dedicated Tobacco Addiction team.

They will receive support and advice on managing their addiction and will be offered Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT), as well as other medications, to manage their cravings during their hospital stay. They will also be signposted to ongoing treatment and support once they leave hospital.

The CURE project focuses on two key elements: medicalising tobacco addiction to empower all healthcare professionals to proactively commence treatment with all smokers they encounter, and the provision of intensive behavioural change support through a team of highly expert stop smoking practitioners.

It was initially piloted at Wythenshawe Hospital in 2018 and initial results demonstrated high levels of screening for active smokers, high levels of stop smoking pharmacotherapy, high levels of engagement with intensive support with the CURE team and lead to just over one in five smokers admitted to hospital being abstinent from tobacco three months later.

Dr Matt Evison, Clinical Director of the Greater Manchester CURE Project, added: "This is a huge step forward for the project as we expand from the initial pilot to several acute hospital sites across a large healthcare organisation.

"Most importantly, it means a significantly higher number of smokers will have the opportunity to receive highly effective treatment and the support required to stop smoking."