About the Evaluation

Introduction

This evaluation aims to assess the effectiveness and implementation of hospital-based stop smoking services, supporting efforts to reduce smoking rates and improve public health. In the first instance this focuses on the QUIT programme which is supported by Yorkshire Cancer Research and was rolled out across hospitals in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw in 2021.

The evaluation of the QUIT programme is divided into three parts:

Part one: understanding the service, implementation challenges and data collection

The first part of the evaluation happened during the first year of the QUIT service and aimed to develop an understanding of the main parts of the service, how it was intended to operate, and any initial problems that were encountered.

The service was implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when hospitals were facing extreme pressures. Despite this, hospital leaders were clear that despite the challenges, it was more important than ever to help people stop smoking due to the potential for the COVID-19 virus to affect their respiratory systems.

We also worked with hospital teams to set up an effective system for gathering all the data that would be used for monitoring and evaluating the service. This included the different electronic record systems used by nurses when admitting patients, by tobacco treatment advisers and by community stop smoking services.

View: Interim Report (hosted on Figshare)
View: Interim Report Summary

Part two: gathering initial feedback from staff and improving data collection

The second part of the evaluation took place after the service had had time to bed in. We held interviews and workshops with hospital staff to get a deeper understanding of the practicalities of implementing the service and what helped or hindered its delivery.

We also worked out the technical details of how data from the different systems could be sent to the University for analysis, and how the quality of the data could be improved.

Part three: surveying staff and patients, data analysis and modelling future quit rates

The final phase of the evaluation seeks to capture patient and staff perspectives, quantify outcomes, and assess the cost-effectiveness of the service. 

Surveys

We designed three surveys:

• one for staff delivering the service

• one for staff receiving support from the service themselves

• one for patients who had received support from the service while in hospital (this survey was not for use in children's or mental health services)

Participants were asked about their experiences of being offered the service and how effective it has been in helping them to stop smoking, along with some more general questions about their thoughts on the programme and its implementation.

The surveys and participant information sheets are available on our OpenScience site.

Mental health patients

To hear the perspectives of patients receiving care from mental health hospitals, we conducted a series of patient interviews, where patients were supported in their conversations with us by the tobacco treatment advisors. 

These staff helped to identify patients who would be willing to talk with us and we also talked to the tobacco treatment advisors about their perspectives on the experiences of patients who did not want to engage with the service.

Data analysis

The data analysis will map the flows of patients and staff through the service and how many of those quit smoking as a result.

A key statistic we're measuring is the number of patients who successfully abstain from smoking for four weeks after receiving support from the service. 

This outcome is crucial for assessing the return on investment in dedicated stop smoking advisors, nicotine replacement therapy, and supporting materials such as advertising posters. 

Computer modelling

Finally, the evaluation aims to use its understanding of how patients flow through the service, together with quitting outcomes and service costs, to build a computer simulation model. This will allow us to both offer recommendations for improvements to the QUIT service and to demonstrate how other hospital-based stop smoking services might improve smoking rates and the long-term health of people in their local areas.

Learning from the evaluation

We will write comprehensive reports which pull together all the different aspects of the evaluation and will share these with the hospitals and with Yorkshire Cancer Research. 

These reports will include recommendations for how the service can make improvements and achieve better quit rates. 

We also hope that the recommendations from the evaluation will support other hospitals around the country to implement similar stop smoking services.

We will share the results from the QUIT service and other hospital-based stop smoking service evaluations on the findings page of this website.