Agenda item
Smoking Cessation
The Health Select Committee has asked for an update on the smoking cessation service in Brent. The Health Select Committee has agreed previously to monitor progress of the smoking cessation programme because of its importance to the health of people in Brent. NHS Brent has provided a brief update on the performance of the service in the first half of 2009/10.
Minutes:
Mark Easton (Chief Executive NHS Brent) provided the committee with an update on the progress of the smoking cessation service in Brent. He explained that a briefing note had been provided to the committee which summarised the performance of the service in the first half of 2009/2010. He stated that Brent PCT had, over the last couple of years, invested a lot of money into smoking cessation and that whilst this was having some impact, it had not had the impact which had been hoped for. He explained that whilst the numbers who had stopped smoking had doubled, the numbers had been very small to begin with.
Mark Easton informed the committee that they had been running an incentive scheme whereby a financial reward was provided, to those who had delivered the stop smoking service, when the client registered with the service and once the client had quit for a certain period of time. He explained that whilst they had thought that a generous scheme would raise the number of quitters, it had not reached the numbers that they had expected it would. Mark Easton stated that the more successful PCTs had been those which had used their Smoking Cessation Teams to proactively reach out and target communities. He stated that consideration needed to be given as to whether the emphasis should be switched from individual pharmacists and GPs to this approach. He added there was currently an under-spend in the smoking cessation budget which could be used for this.
In the discussion which followed, an enquiry was made as to who had been delivering the stop smoking service. It was also asked how long it would be until Brent PCT started to consider a move away from the rewards based system. In response to the first enquiry, Mark Easton explained that it was GPs and Pharmacists who had been delivering the service. In response to the second enquiry, Mark Easton explained that it may be that they would keep using the reward based scheme but that the remaining resources would be used to commission other services to support the current approach. He added that he would not want to dis-incentivise those GPs and pharmacists who were helping people to quit.
Cathy Tyson (Assistant Director of Policy and Regeneration), following an enquiry, explained that smoking cessation remained a local priority in the LAA but was not one of the basket of indicators which was linked to the reward grant. Mark Easton commented that smoking cessation was one of the best ways to decrease health inequalities. Cathy Tyson highlighted that there was huge variation on smoking rates in the borough, but that smoking was generally more prevalent in the borough’s deprived areas.
Following a query about using dentists and opticians, Mark Easton explained that interested opticians and dentists had recently been invited to become providers of the stop smoking service. With regards to community groups, he stated that other PCTs were targeting community groups successfully and whilst it was not something Brent PCT was currently doing, it was something that the Brent PCT would want to consider as it was an untapped resource.
It was noted by a member of the committee that the figures for quarter 2 were an improvement on quarter 1. It was asked whether this would mean that the 2009/2010 target could be met. In response, Mark Easton explained that the target would not be met unless changes were made. He stated that at the current rate, only 60-65% of the target was likely to be met.
The committee agreed to monitor this issue on a quarterly basis.
RESOLVED:-
i) that the progress in meeting the smoking cessation targets for 2009/10 be noted;
ii) that it be agreed that smoking cessation updates become a standing item on the Health Select Committee agenda on a quarterly basis.
Supporting documents: