A PHARMACIST at Newport’s Royal Gwent Hospital has made it her mission to help long-term smokers quit and has helped develop a new service to do so.

Victoria Richards-Green is a pharmacist at the Royal Gwent’s respiratory wards, treating patients with chronic lifelong conditions, many of which have been caused by their smoking habit.

One of the most extreme cases she has come across is a patient with a 200-a-day cigarette habit.

Despite the devastating effect smoking has had on their health, these patients often continue to smoke and put their health at greater risk.

“We’re working with a smoker who was on 80 cigarettes a day,” said Mrs Richards-Green.

“He’s got down to three a day and we’ve changed his NRT (nicotine replacmeent therapy) and given him two patches a day and he’s well on his way

Mrs Richards-Green and her colleagues recognised the crucial importance of providing these hardened smokers with the tailored smoking cessation support they required in order to finally quit.

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Victoria Richards-Green is helping smokers to quit

The idea was developed of prescribing pharmaco-therapies, including nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and varenicline, as well as offering behavioural support to the smokers attending the pulmonary rehabilitation programs they run.

With the help of team members, around 45 per cent of the patients they have worked with in the programs have successfully quit smoking, even those who thought they had no hope of ever living a smoke-free life.

“For many of the respiratory patients, when it comes to quitting smoking, health is not a strong motivating factor,” she added.

“In cardiology for instance, we see lots of patients who’ve had their first heart attack and they are usually relatively young, so it really motivates them to go on a massive health kick.

“Whereas older COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) patients are more inclined to be of the opinion that they have already damaged their lungs and there’s no point in stopping.

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“So, we often use their grandchildren as a motivation, telling them that by stopping smoking it will slow the decline of their lungs and give them a better quality of life".

Patients are seen at the respiratory rehab programs twice a week for six weeks, which means there are plenty of opportunities to re-enforce the benefits of quitting smoking.

Currently, the smoking cessation project is only running in Newport, but Mrs Richards-Green hopes it will be rolled out across the whole Aneurin Bevan University Health Board area.

For more information and advice on quitting smoking visit ash.wales/who-can-help-me/