Agenda item

The Health Select Committee has asked NHS Brent to provide a quarterly update on the performance of the smoking cessation service. The update is attached at appendix 1.

The Chair introduced Susan Hearn as the newly appointed Stop Smoking Manager for NHS Brent, who was present at the meeting to update the committee on the performance of the smoking cessation service.  It was noted that NHS Brent had been asked by the committee to provide quarterly updates on its performance in this area.  Susan Hearn began the update by reminding the committee that smoking was one of the most significant contributing factors to life expectancy, health inequalities and ill health and that therefore reducing smoking was a key priority for NHS Brent. She stated that a Health Profile report for Brent, in 2009, had reported that there had been 247 deaths in Brent through smoking. She also noted that in Brent the smoking rate varied greatly according to areas in Brent.  Susan Hearn informed the committee that Brent had signed up to a new national strategy which aimed to cut the number of smokers from 21% to 10% of the population by 2020.  She added that she was going to ask NHS Brent’s Communications Department to do a press release that would inform the public about this new piece of information.

With regards to meeting the 2009/2010 annual 4 week quit target, Sarah Hearn informed the committee that as of 22 January 2010, 2135 registrations had taken place.  This she explained represented 50% of the planned registrations to date which would be required to reach the quit target of 2022, based on a 40% conversion rate from set to quit to actual quit.  She added that they may see an increase in registrations over the next couple of months, as this was the time of year when it was most likely that people would attempt to quit smoking.

Sarah Hearn drew the committee’s attention to some of the measures which had been put in place to improve performance and increase the number of registrations. This included infrastructure development through the setting up of a new web based information system, which would allow it to be easier for providers to view how they were performing month by month.  This, she noted, was currently being piloted in 5 pharmacists. She explained that whilst there had been a few start up problems with the new system, she believed that they would be able to resolve these problems.   She informed the committee that the core stop smoking team had been built up through the recruitment of new staff, including the stop smoking manager and a service administrator. Furthermore, she noted that interviews for a stop smoking specialist were scheduled to take place shortly.  Another measure, she explained, had been to promote capacity building within the service by increasing the number of commissioned providers.  She stated that Metroline at Willesden/Cricklewood had taken up Level 2 training in January 2010 and Mcvities in Harlesden had recruited workplace advisors to be trained in February 2010.  Brent Council’s Occupational Health Service had also been engaged.   She added that the stop smoking team had also been building links with Asda supermarket.

Sarah Hearn informed the committee that the Brent Tobacco Alliance had continued to build momentum.  She added that two Tobacco Control Alliance meetings had been held since October 2009 and that currently around 20 stakeholders had engaged from various sectors. She explained that currently a Tobacco Alliance Strategy was being worked on.  Susan Hearn concluded by stating that, with support from the Regional Tobacco Team, a detailed action plan had been developed and had been submitted to NHS London for review.

In the discussion that followed it was asked whether there were any targets for preventing people from starting to smoke in the first place.  In response, Susan Hearn explained that there was an aspect to the prevalence target in the National Tobacco Control Strategy which was related to preventing people from taking up smoking.  Following a comment, Susan Hearn stated that she was worried that there were only a small number of GP surgeries who had signed up for the stop smoking service and that increasing this number was one of the challenges that she faced.  Martin Cheeseman (Director of Housing and Community Care) stated that whilst there was a good policy moving forward, smoking cessation targets had suffered due to the ceasing of the service by NHS Brent when they were in financial crisis.   He added that as a result of this, the LAA target was not met which meant that the £700,000, which Brent could have received for meeting this target, was not awarded. 

In response to a comment regarding the detailed action plan, which was for those parts of the service which were not achieving, Simon Bowen explained that whilst informally, they had received very positive feedback from NHS London regarding the action plan, they were still waiting to receive the formal feedback.  Following a question regarding the budget of the Brent Stop Smoking Service, Susan Hearn explained that it was set at £1.5 million but that not all of this had been spent because they had not met the target of registrations.  The importance of getting the Government to take action and to provide funding to reduce smoking rates was raised.  Simon Bowen stated that the smoke free legislation had made a significant impact on smoking rates.  The importance of discouraging smoking in schools was also raised.  In response, Susan Hearn explained that there were a range of programmes in schools which were aimed at discouraging smoking. She added that NHS Brent could look at setting up referral routes via school nurses. Simon Bowen stated that there were boroughs in London who were reaching their targets and that Brent should be doing this too.  He added that that he hoped that the measures which were being put in place now would enable them to do this. The Chair noted that the Health Select Committee would continue to monitor the performance of the smoking cessation service on a quarterly basis. 

RESOLVED:-

that the update be noted.