"Smoking and covid precautions at QMC."

I’m sorry to hear about your experience of encountering smoking on the QMC grounds. As a healthcare organisation committed to promoting wellbeing, it is a priority for us to provide a healthy and safe environment for all of our patients, staff and visitors. Allowing smoking anywhere on site is not consistent with this message. We do not want anyone to have to walk through or be exposed to second hand smoke anywhere on our premises.

Unfortunately we do not have the resources available to challenge every smoker. There is no law in place to issue fines for smoking outdoors on hospital grounds. The smokefree work we are currently undertaking is focused on changing the culture within the Trust whereby smoking is not acceptable anywhere in our grounds.

We acknowledge that signage used in isolation is not effective. However, our approach is long term and wide ranging. It includes a range of interventions and activities such as clear and consistent communication, access to specialist stop smoking support for smokers who want to quit and for those who need help with temporary abstinence from tobacco whilst in hospital and the provision of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) to enable patients to manage their nicotine dependence during their stay.

The Trust is also taking steps to ensure that staff have easy access to stop smoking support and NRT to support them to stop or temporarily abstain from smoking whilst at work. Staff who repeatedly breach the policy may face disciplinary action but our preference is to provide as much support as we can to encourage them to be smokefree.

Achieving a smokefree hospital is a challenge that is not unique to NUH. However, I can assure you that we are working hard to put in to place projects and initiatives that aim to protect our staff, patients and visitors from the harmful effects of smoking but acknowledge that we still have much work to do.

If you have any further concerns you can contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service on 0800 183 0204 or email PALS@nuh.nhs.uk.

Kind Regards

Zahida Niazi
Smokefree Lead

Thank you for feeding this observation back to us. As an organisation we are promoting social distancing and the PPE agenda with all staff when not delivering direct clinical care. In an organisation of this size we do see high levels of compliance however there is a small minority that fall below our expected standards which we are endeavouring to address. This does however rely on human behavioural factors which can be a challenge to a trust of this size.

We have constant communications that go out on Trust staff briefings, videos by our Social Distancing Group and pleas to staff with elements to consider. For staff that do not readily have access to ICT devices there are cascade processes for information to be filtered down through their management teams, some examples are tool box talks and communication boards which display the latest Trust updates and bulletins.

Staff should be adhering to lift occupancy levels and the numbers are clearly displayed near the call buttons. It’s disappointing to hear that staff are being inconsiderate and overcrowding in the lifts. We will address this through our Trust Briefings to all staff.

We have a very clear and concise PPE strategy in which we all have a part to play. One of NUH’s messages is to empower all staff to respectfully challenge one another if they are not wearing their face mask correctly as this may not have been done intentionally. We do recognise that there will always be a minority of staff that will struggle to wear the masks all day, and may not be compliant at all times. However we are clear that staff should not be walking around inside the organisation without wearing the mask properly covering the nose and mouth. Managers are frequently updated with any changes to the mask intolerance policy which may offer suggestions on alternative products that may support the wearer to comply.

Our Infection Prevention team have developed a working audit tool for clinical and non-clinical areas which are completed weekly, and where issues are flagged they are dealt with there and then. We do recognise that audits are only a snap shot of that moment and do not always reflect unseen issues. Within our public spaces such as corridors and entrances, we have volunteers who actively encourage staff and the public to comply with mask wearing and social distancing.

I hope this gives you a clearer idea of how we are working to promote social distancing and PPE around the Trust.

If you need any further information or have any other concerns please contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Team on 0800 183 0204 or email PALS@nuh.nhs.uk.

Kind Regards

Jeanette Johnson
Pandemic Response Officer