The Tobacco Inpatient Service are a team of Specialist Tobacco Dependency Advisors who are on hand to support patients during their stay in hospital.
Our aim is to help keep patients comfortable from nicotine withdrawal by providing Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) treatment and by providing onward referral to community stop smoking services if they would like to continue this healthier lifestyle.
Being a patient in hospital is very often the ideal opportunity to consider their overall health and wellbeing and making healthier choices.
All of our East Lancashire Teaching Hospital sites and grounds are completely smoke and vape-free and all staff and members of the public must adhere to the smokefree policy.
The Tobacco Inpatient Service helps inpatients who are smokers and dependant on nicotine by helping to make their stay as comfortable as possible. We can provide specialist support along with free Nicotine Replacement Therapy which is assessed on an individual basis.
The Team provides support to:
- Inpatients at ELHT who are nicotine dependant
- Inpatients at ELHT that, through screening in hospital, have been identified as someone that would benefit from support from the service
We work with patients that are receiving care at ELHT, either on a ward or in our Emergency Department. Please make referrals to the Tobacco Inpatient Service via the New Order Entry on our Electronic Patient Record (EPR), Cerner Millennium .
Training for colleagues
Training will be coming soon for staff around the issuing of NRT and around the
Very Brief Advice (VBA) guidance.
VBA is a 30-second intervention that can be delivered by all healthcare professionals in almost every consultation with patients who smoke. VBA involves asking patients about their current smoking, advising them on the best methods of stopping smoking available to them and helping them access evidence-based stop smoking support.
The NCSCT Stop Smoking Referral System is a whole-hospital approach to stop- smoking support for patients. It focuses on supporting staff to ask and record smoking status for every patient, to deliver 30-second VBA (Ask, Advise, Act) and to refer patients to stop-smoking services.
You can access Free online training through the NCSCT website. This is the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training: https://elearning.ncsct.co.uk/england
Very brief advice on smoking
30 seconds to save a life...
AND RECORD SMOKING STATUS
Is the patient a smoker, ex-smoker or a non-smoker?
ON THE BEST WAY OF QUITTING
The best way of stopping smoking is with a combination of medication and specialist support.
ON PATIENT’S RESPONSE
Build confidence, give information, advise they are more likely to quit successfully with support.
Refer to tobacco inpatient service via the New Order Entry on Cerner Millennium.
Contact us
The Tobacco Inpatient Service’s aim is to benefit the whole community by supporting those people most in need in the hospital setting, this includes support whilst in hospital and referral onto community services. For more information about the Tobacco Inpatient Service, please contact:
- Laura Walker: Laura.Walker@elht.nhs.uk
- Michelle Moore: michelle.moore@elht.nhs.uk
For Tobacco Queries:
- Internal telephone: 85830
- Email: elht.tobaccoinpatientservice@nhs.net