"Smoking on Craigavon site"

Deployed Smoke FREE Signage across the entire SHSCT estate Employed a Smoke Free Warden who patrols both Craigavon Area Hospital and Daisy Hill Hospital sites. They challenge on average 41 smokers per day. People who smoke within the smoke free boundaries will be asked to extinguish their cigarettes or move outside of the smoke free boundaries Regular tannoy announcements which play anti-smoking reminders (pending)​ Established a promotional campaign to raise awareness of Smoke Free and Stop Smoking Services (under review) Invested in a team of Stop Smoking specialists who offer the Stop Smoking Service across the SHSCT to patients and staff Our staff are routinely provided with training to help smokers refrain from smoking whilst in our care Patients who are admitted either as an emergency or planned admission, will be offered nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) in the form of patches and inhalator and will be offered a referral for ongoing support to our Stop Smoking Service Established a Smoke Free Implementation Group Established a Smoke Free Policy

Having designated smoking areas including smoking shelters on our sites implies that we actively support smoking so we have removed the shelters. Many of our smoking shelters have been replaced with cycle racks in order to encourage cycling / healthier lifestyle habits.

We have made significant progress in becoming a Smoke FREE Trust, however despite our efforts, compliance with our Smoke Free ambition remains challenging. In order to become truly Smoke Free we need the general public, visitors, patients and staff attending and working in our health and social care facilities to refrain from smoking whilst on site and comply with our Smoke Free policy.

As part of our duty of care to improve and protect the health and wellbeing of our staff, patients and wider communities we will continue to support those who wish to stop smoking and encourage those who do smoke to stop particularly when visiting health and social care sites, such as Craigavon Area Hospital.

Thank you for raising this very important issue and please don’t hesitate to contact me if you need any clarification on the points raised.

Jeff Scroggie (Health Improvement Specialist)

1. Thank you for taking the time to voice your concerns relating to members of the public and patients smoking outside Craigavon Area Hospital main entrance.

We acknowledge that this is a persistent problem across many hospital sites in Northern Ireland and that smoking and breathing in second hand smoke is detrimental to health, not to mention the environmental impact and horridness of discarded cigarette butts.

In 2016 the Southern Trust made a commitment to become ‘Smoke Free’. This means that smoking is not permitted on any of our sites including all buildings, grounds and vehicles by Trust staff, patients or visitors.

In doing so: (please see section above)