Whenever someone is seen to be smoking on site any member of staff or the public can press the blue ‘no smoking button’, which will play a pre-recorded message via a tannoy speaker.
The pre-recorded, personalised messages are spoken by local children, teenagers and adults. The initiative, the brain child of Hayley Stone, specialist smoking cessation midwife at the hospital, started with a single PA system outside the maternity unit with staff accessing the press button whenever someone was seen smoking in the area.
It was such a hit amongst staff and patients that it was then rolled out in 11 smoking hotspot sites around the hospital including Accident and Emergency, The Beacon Centre, The Duchess Building and The Jubilee Building.
Musgrove Park Hospital’s Chief Executive, Dr Sam Barrell, said: “It is really important for us as a hospital to promote healthy living to our patients, carers and family and friends, and part of that includes having an entirely Smokefree site. “What we have now is a personalised announcement system available in every entrance, which is incredibly user friendly. If you happen to be here and you are walking past and you see someone smoking, please do press the button and hopefully that will encourage others to do the same.”
Musgrove Park Hospital’s Smokefree Lead, Lucy Rexworthy, said: “Rolling out the PA systems across the hospital entrances has been a fantastic project to work on. The local children and parents who helped us record the messages have been brilliant and deserve tremendous recognition. “What the Smokefree team believe to be so great about this roll-out is that not only can our colleagues activate the system but patients and visitors too. We know that to change the culture of smoking on site, we will need the support of the public and we truly hope that incentives like this one will make it easier for the public to engage with our campaign to have an entirely smoke free hospital site.”
Interested in using this system to combat smoking on your site?
Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust and Health and Care Videos have worked together to enable other Trusts and organisations access to these pre-recorded messages that can be used on their own premises.
Visit http://www.healthandcarevideos.com/library/no_smoking/ for more information.