One of the objectives of the NHS Long Term Plan (January 2019) is that: “…by 2023/2024, all people admitted to hospital who smoke will be offered NHS-funded tobacco treatment services”. This aims to complement, rather than replace, the existing local authority funded community stop smoking services (CSSSs).
The delivery model includes routine screening of smoking status for all patients and consultation with a hospital-based tobacco treatment advisor on an opt-out basis, to develop a personalised plan of behavioural support and pharmacotherapy. The model aims to embed treatment of tobacco dependency as a new clinical pathway, acknowledging that tobacco dependency is a chronic relapsing medical condition, and that the NHS has a duty of care to provide effective treatment as with any other condition. This is in line with a move away from considering smoking as a lifestyle choice to a chronic addiction and treatment model.
The School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) at the University of Sheffield has been commissioned by Yorkshire Cancer Research to conduct a service evaluation of the QUIT programme that is being implemented in eight hospital Trusts in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw (https://sybics-quit.co.uk/).
The evaluation started in February 2021, the QUIT service began in May 2021, and the first National Health Service (NHS) Trust began delivering tobacco dependence treatment in June 2021.
The evaluation is divided into three work-packages that each take a different methodological approach. Work-package 1 will use quantitative and qualitative methods to collect and analyse data relating to implementation, acceptability, and perceived outcomes of the QUIT programme. As part of this work, we developed a survey component for patients and staff, which came at the end of the evaluation, to further explore factors associated with implementation and efficacy.
Three versions of the survey have been developed for:
1. Patients in acute adult hospitals who have been offered the QUIT service (not mental health service users or people in Children’s services)
2. Staff who are smokers and have been offered the QUIT service
3. Staff (smokers or non-smokers) who work in places where the QUIT service is being offered.
The surveys have been made available in this repository to support people from the teams implementing the QUIT service, and teams implementing and evaluating hospital-based stop smoking services in other sites.
