We are proud to have signed a pledge committing us to eight key principles to support a smokefree future.

The NHS Smokefree Pledge is designed to be a clear and visible way for NHS organisations to show their commitment to helping smokers to quit and to providing smokefree environments which support quitting.

In signing the NHS Smokefree Pledge, organisations commit to reduce the harm caused by tobacco through implementing comprehensive smokefree policies.

Salma Yasmeen, chief executive, Sharon Mays, chair, and Helen Crimlisk, medical director, all signed the NHS Smokefree Pledge on behalf of Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust (SHSC).

In England alone, almost 75,000 people die from smoking related diseases each year. Smoking accounts for over one-third of all deaths from respiratory disease, one quarter of all deaths from cancer and over one tenth of all deaths caused by circulatory diseases. On average, smoking reduces life expectancy by 10 years.

If hospitalised, people who smoke are more likely to require longer stays and need intensive care after surgery. So smoking creates an inevitable cost to society and to the NHS.

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), an independent public health charity set up by the Royal College of Physicians to end the harm caused by tobacco, estimates that smoking costs the NHS approximately £2.4 billion each year through smoking-related hospital admissions and the cost of treating smoking related illness via primary care services.

Delivering the commitments in the NHS Smokefree Pledge will help reduce smoking rates and save tens of thousands of lives and billions of pounds in NHS resources.

By signing the pledge, SHSC is committed to:

• Treat tobacco dependency among patients and staff who smoke in line with commitments in the NHS Long Term Plan and Tobacco Control Plan for England 
• Ensure that smokers within the NHS have access to the medication they need to quit in line with NICE (The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) guidance on smoking in secondary care 
• Create environments that support quitting through implementing smokefree policies as recommended by NICE 
• Deliver consistent messages about harms from smoking and the opportunities and support available to quit in line with NICE guidance 
• Actively work with local authorities and other stakeholders to reduce smoking prevalence and health inequalities 
• Protect tobacco control work from the commercial and vested interests of the tobacco industry 
• Support Government action at national level 
• Publicise this commitment to reducing smoking in our communities and join the Smokefree Action Coalition (SFAC), the alliance of organisations working to reduce the harm caused by tobacco
   

SHSC is smokefree for our service users, staff and visitors.

The Trust also offers staff and service users who smoke help through the QUIT programme.

Between January and December 2023, QUIT helped 35 service users and 25 members of staff to quit smoking.