BTS celebrates the completion of the 2022/23 Quality Improvement Programme for Tobacco Dependency Treatment Services in Acute Trusts

Between August 2022 and August 2023, the British Thoracic Society (BTS) facilitated the launch and management of a Quality Improvement (QI) Programme for Tobacco Dependency Treatment. This programme aimed to support healthcare providers to undertake local quality QI initiatives, especially for the development of high-quality tobacco dependency treatment services with a focus on inpatient pathways. This project was primarily driven by the high-level NHS goal of encouraging all hospitalised patients to quit smoking by 2024.  Smoking is one of the biggest avoidable causes of disease and premature death in the United Kingdom, so working to ensure that services are set up in a way to best meet the need of patients is crucial to successfully address smoking as a driver of ill health.

During the programme, led by BTS members Dr Robyn Fletcher and Professor Sanjay Agrawal, participating teams were offered written resources, 11 webinars, coaching sessions and individual team support. It was hosted entirely online, mitigating access barriers for busy health professionals around the UK. Of the 25 teams which participated in the programme, 24 were based across Trusts in England and one in Northern Ireland.

Public Health Registrar and QI Programme Lead, Dr Robyn Fletcher, said about the programme,

“We have a good understanding of the issues in tobacco dependency treatment and this initiative was important to move us into being solution focussed. One of the strengths of the programme was its accessibility to teams from across the UK and the multidisciplinary nature of the participating teams.”

The programme aimed to ensure the content was inclusive and relevant to the varied roles within the multi-disciplinary respiratory team. With an increasing emphasis of incorporating community-based services, it is excellent to note that participants involved in the programme came from a large variety of professional roles, from respiratory physicians to pharmacists, project managers, tobacco dependency advisors and more.

Professor Sanjay Agrawal, National Specialty Adviser for Tobacco Dependency at NHS England and QI Programme Lead, added,

“We wanted to provide a quality improvement course that encouraged everyone involved in looking after patients who are tobacco dependent to learn QI techniques, to improve care. We were utterly delighted that so many people from all over the United Kingdom took part and applied this newly acquired QI knowledge to support their patients locally, to prevent illness and save lives.”

Feedback received from participants in the programme was positive, particularly regarding the use of tools and QI frameworks, and the practical step-by-step approach taken to run a QI project. Since its completion, there have been some excellent project improvements reported from individual teams who participated in the programme. These include a 60% increase in screening, a 25% increase in patients engaging with tobacco dependency services, and a 22% increase in the confidence of health professionals, it is hoped that this will translate to improvements in both patient care and health outcomes.

Dr Mark Juniper, Chair of the BTS Quality Improvement Committee, summarised,

“In the last few years, the Quality Improvement Committee has been exploring different approaches to improvement. This is a great, practical example of a project that has increased the QI skills of respiratory teams at the same time as making a measurable difference for patients. We are keen to use this model for future improvement projects supported by the BTS.”

The report summarising the programme is available to read here.