| Inspirational Health Professionals |
| Netty Creswell |
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Netty Creswell is a smoking cessation volunteer at Monklands Hospital in Airdrie near Glasgow. She supports Smoking Cessation Nurse Catherine Burke by being a buddy to smokers to want to quit and need extra support.
She has trained in brief intervention and visits the hospital every week to see patients at their bedside, encouraging and motivating them to quit by relating her own experiences of the process. Netty quit smoking herself in 2001.Netty also follows patients up at home with weekly telephone calls for as long as they require them.
Netty organizes fundraising events and helps out with any health promotion activities in the hospital and promotes the new smoking ban socially. All her work is unpaid.
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| Debbie
Brown |
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Debbie Brown is the only nurse with two Doctors at the Army Medical Centre, Princess Royal Barracks, Deepcut. In 2001, Debbie was seeing many soldiers with smoking related illnesses and felt nothing was being done on the prevention side. So Debbie trained as a stop smoking advisor and then established a Stop Smoking Clinic for the soldiers.
Debbie operates an open door policy, providing individual and group sessions and telephone support. Patients receive support for 12 weeks and then receive follow-ups. Debbie has achieved an impressive her success rate with over 50% of her patients being 4-week quitters since January 2005. |
| Helena
Connelly |
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Helena
Connelly is a Stop Smoking Clinical Nurse Specialist based at St.
John’s Hospital, Livingston, Scotland. With a team of 2 project midwives,
she manages a “Stop for Life” 3 year project which aims to identify effective
stop smoking services for low-income pregnant women, their partner and families.
Their patients can receive support throughout the pregnancy and after giving
birth. The team take a non-judgemental approach that allows pregnant smokers
to feel comfortable to talk to them and access their services. Helena lists
the greatest achievements of the project as being retaining their patients
throughout the entire pregnancy-birth process and raising awareness levels
among pregnant women about the dangers of smoking. |
| Dhimant
Patel |
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Dhimant
Patel has run a community based pharmacy in Rayners Lane, Middlesex
for over 10 years. He has an innovative approach. Many of his clients
do not have English as a first language so he involves their children
who translate but also he feels this is an excellent opportunity to inform
them about the dangers of smoking.
He also supports
other pharmacies to deliver stop smoking programmes.
He takes the initiative in visiting outreach centres so he can reach key
groups including pregnant women and young people. |
| Kirstie
Hepburn, Pharmacist |
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Kirstie
Hepburn of Scotland, a former Prison Pharmacist
realised that the promotion of smoking cessation programmes in prisons had
been neglected. So she and her team offered a mixture of one to one counselling,
group sessions, challenges, quizzes and incentives. They worked with young
adults aged 16-21, at Polmont Young Offenders Institution in Falkirk helping
them to stop. There was a 22% quit rate after only three months and 17%
after one year. Kirstie hopes that her team's work is only the start of
the introduction of smoking cessation programmes in prisons throughout the
UK. |
| Bangladeshi Tobacco Smoking Cessation Project |
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Dipul
Ghosh and Shamsia Begum of the Bangladeshi Tobacco Smoking Cessation
Project based in East London won the Smoking Cessation Supporter of the Year Award in 2004. They offer
a culturally-sensitive cessation service for a community which has over
twice the national prevalence of tobacco consumption, both smoked and chewed.
The proactive team offer regular outreach activities including to housebound
women, the elderly and same sex support in the clients language of choice. |
| Specialist Pregnancy Smoking Advisor |
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Gillian Wayman, a Specialist Pregnancy Smoking Advisor from Sunderland, undertook an
in-depth evaluation to examine the barriers to cessation services for pregnant
women. Using this knowledge, Gillian now supports women who are pregnant,
planning a pregnancy or who are breast-feeding, and need advice on quitting
smoking. She also supports her client's immediate friends and family. |
| Practice
Nurse helps patients to Quit |
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Rachel Clay,
a Practice Nurse from North Yorkshire, demonstrated an understanding of
the needs of the isolated community in which she works 2 days a week as
a Practice Nurse- literally travelling the 'extra mile' to ensure equality
of access to all. Rachel lead in developing smoking cessation services in
her area; without Rachel, it would not exist. |
| QUIT
Smoking Cessation Supporter award winner |
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Nilesh
Shah of Buckinghamshire won the Smoking Cessation Supporter of the Year Award in 2003. He said, “I hope
that Pharmacy work can now gain recognition as a tool to help people quit." Since 1993
Nilesh invested his own time and money into the development of his specialist
smoking cessation consultations. He proactively telephoned clients to encourage
them to use the services as well as providing weekly support, NRT and if
suitable bupropion. His first client has now stopped for ten years.
Sadly Nilesh Shah passed
away in 2004. Nilesh proved
to an inspiration to many of his Pharmaceutical colleagues in the Smoking
Cessation area. They are now continuing Nilesh's excellent and inspirational
work in helping people to stop smoking. |
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