SCDHB

The number of Timaru Hospital patients who are offered help to quit smoking has shot up in the past year.

Hospital staff are giving smokers the chance to quit and improve their health. They are also working towards meeting the government's "Better Help for Smokers to Quit" health target.

Latest results show 75 percent of patients were offered help to quit smoking between April and June. This is a big improvement on 10 percent recorded last year. The government's target is 80 percent.

The results include hospital inpatients and those patients presenting at the emergency department, day stay and other hospital-based interventions.

General manager of secondary services Christine Nolan says the marked improvement is due to increased efforts by front-line staff to identify patients who are smokers and refer them to the hospital's Smokefree Team, and also to better data collection.

"I think staff have been doing a great job for some time now - reaching out to patients who are smokers. At first those efforts weren't necessarily reflected in the data we were able to collect, but we are confident that this is occurring now," she says.

"This quarter's results show the effort and focus that staff throughout the hospital have placed on this health target. We know that health outcomes are better for patients who can be supported to quit smoking."

A similar initiative is underway for GP patients, although it will also benefit from improved data collection, according to Fiona Pimm, SCDHB's general manager of primary and community services.

"Patients are already being supported by their GPs and general practice teams to quit smoking, though approaches can differ between practices.

"We are working to ensure practice teams have the appropriate resources to continue good support and follow-up of patients, so when patients are ready to quit they know what help is available and how to access it," she says.