Patients offered stop smoking support as part of routine care at Worksop’s Bassetlaw Hospital

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust’s service will offer every patient from age 12 who smokes access to nicotine replacement therapy and specialist stop-smoking support during their hospital stay from teams of trained tobacco treatment advisers, funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research.

Hospitals in eight NHS Trusts – including DBTH, which runs Worksop’s Bassetlaw Hospital – will now offer smokers treatment for their tobacco addiction as part of their routine care.

Community-based stop smoking services will play a key role, ensuring medication and support is continued after patients leave hospital to help them beat their addiction.

Tobacco smoke is estimated to be responsible for 15 per cent of cancers in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw, and 27 per cent of all cancer deaths.

Nearly 200,000 people smoke in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw and more than half of those will die on average 10 years earlier from smoking-related illness.

Simon Brown, DBTH acting deputy chief nurse, said: “The QUIT programme is a positive step for South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw. It means we can support people to begin their stop-smoking journey when they are already in touch with our health services and help them improve their general health.

“Smoking remains one of our major public health challenges in terms of its contributions to health inequalities in our region and its impact on life expectancy, but it is preventable with intervention tools like QUIT.

“Ultimately, the QUIT programme will improve the health of our local communities and enable people in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw to live longer, healthier lives.”