Tameside and Glossop Strategic Commission* and Tameside and Glossop ICFT have signed the NHS Smokefree Pledge, committing to helping staff and patients alike quit smoking while ensuring that its sites are smokefree.
The NHS Smokefree Pledge has been designed by the Smokefree Action Coalition and is endorsed by NHS England, Public Health England and the Public Health Minister, Steve Brine MP. It will help support NHS organisations to help smokers in their care quit and to create smokefree environments to help them. Signatories also commit to ensuring that smokers within the NHS have access to the medication they need to quit in line with NICE guidance on smoking in secondary care.
Steve Brine MP, the Public Health Minister, said: “The NHS Smokefree Pledge supports the commitments made in Tobacco Control Plan for England. The Plan sets a number of ambitious targets to reduce smoking prevalence as we head towards England’s first smokefree generation. I am delighted to support the Pledge.”
The cost of smoking to the NHS in England is £2.5 billion every year, and 1 in 4 patients in hospital is a smoker.
Dr Alan Dow, Chair at NHS Tameside and Glossop Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “We are delighted to sign the NHS Smokefree Pledge. Smoking is the leading cause of premature death and disease and kills approximately 700 people in Tameside and Glossop every year.
“In Tameside and Glossop we’re determined to help as many smokers to quit as possible, improving their health and reducing the smoking burden placed on the NHS.”
Steven Pleasant, Chief Executive of Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council, said:
“Signing up to the NHS Smokefree Pledge demonstrates our commitment to helping smokers quit and to providing smokefree environments across all our sites.
“We will play our part in continuing to reduce smoking rates across Tameside and Glossop, the NHS Smokefree Pledge is a positive step in the right direction of help to improve the health of local people.”
Karen James, Chief Executive of Tameside and Glossop IC NHS FT, said: “Smoking, as we know, causes premature deaths amongst people living within our community. In fact, in Tameside and Glossop, we have more smokers than in many parts of the country. We have to end this toxic habit as it not only affects the individual smoking but also those people around them, such as babies and young children, as secondary smoke. By signing this pledge, we putting our full support behind the ambition to put out smoking once and for all.”