Contacts
Hospital team
Phone: 020 7188 0995
Email: gst-tr.stopsmoking@nhs.net
We'll reply in 2 working days.
Lambeth community team
Phone: 0800 856 3409 or 020 3049 5791
Email: gst-tr.stopsmokinglambeth@nhs.net
We'll answer your call Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Please leave a message and we'll call you back as soon as possible.
Overview
We provide help and support if you:
- want to stop smoking for good
- need help to manage nicotine cravings during your stay at our hospitals
Our hospitals and community sites are smoke-free. You cannot smoke, or use e-cigarettes, on any of our hospital sites, including outside areas.
You'll have the chance to stop smoking during or after your stay in hospital. We have a hospital team and a local community service.
Our services include:
- tobacco screening and assessment
- treatments to help beat cravings
- motivational tips for staying on track
- managing a relapse after you stop smoking
- nicotine withdrawal management
If you are staying in our hospitals, you'll be asked if you have smoked in the last 28 days. If you have you'll be offered nicotine withdrawal medicine by our ward staff. These include:
A tobacco dependence specialist will visit you to see how you are getting on with your nicotine withdrawal medicine. You'll also be able to talk about your options to get support to stop smoking.
If your appointment is in the community, please ask to be referred to your local stop smoking service.
We can provide support on a one-to-one basis:
- face-to-face
- by telephone
- by video
Stopping smoking before any planned hospital treatment is the best thing you can do. It will speed up your recovery and has many other health benefits.
The NHS quit smoking guide has smoking facts and advice.
- Try and quit at least 8 weeks before your surgery and stay smoke-free afterwards. This will give the most benefits.
- If you stop before your surgery and last until you have recovered it will still have benefits.
- You should not smoke on the day of your surgery.
Some procedures need you to be nicotine-free before surgery. Please check with your doctor or nurse.
If you live in Lambeth and are finding it hard to stop smoking, our community service can help you. We can help if you:
- are housebound
- have a long-term physical or mental health condition
- have tried to stop smoking many times and not been successful
Lambeth council website has information and support to help you stop smoking.
Stop Smoking London has support services in London to help you stop smoking.
Health information
Our team has developed a series of short videos to help you stop smoking.
Specialist advice on stopping smoking
Judith talks about what to expect and the help you can get when you stop smoking.
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Specialist advice on stopping smoking – video transcript
So here in Lambeth we do have a great NHS stop smoking service, so when you contact us you'll be put in contact with your own specialist advisor who will be with you along the journey. As you're thinking of stopping smoking, it's important to have a think about what your reasons are for wanting to stop smoking, because some people find it helpful to write them down so that at least they can refer back to it later on, particularly when things do become difficult, you can sort of just revisit it and just remind yourself why it is that you want to stop smoking and why it's important for you. You'll have access to either one-to-one support, group support or we also do home visits.
We'll measure your carbon monoxide, so that's also another thing that people find quite encouraging. When you first come to us you'll probably find that you have quite a high reading and then as you go along in your quit attempt your reading will come down really low, and your specialist advisor will be able to explain what carbon monoxide is and what it means and what it's doing.
When you're stopping smoking it's common to have a lapse particularly at the beginning. What I would say is just keep going and again with your specialists and while you're stopping smoking you can talk about the lapses and look at well actually what have you learnt, what did you learn, what can you take away from that. And also as you get further along in your quit attempt you'll find that your willpower does strengthen and also you then become more confident that you can continue.
You'll have your own specialist who provides that support for you so you'll have that personal relationship, someone to be accountable to each week and someone to report back to and just boost you along the way and see how you're getting on.
You're four times more likely to successfully stop smoking than just doing it on your own. We at the Lambeth stop smoking service have a good success rate, we're a friendly bunch and, you know, you're at the heart of what we do.
When parents quit smoking
Jessica shares quotes from children whose parents have quit smoking.
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When parents quit smoking – video transcript
When my mum stopped smoking, she seemed really stressed and it must have been very difficult for her. So normally she's wasting her money on packets of cigarettes and going outside and leaving me with my sister. Instead, we started to go to the cinema and playing around in the park and we also get to go on little family trips, like to the countryside. When I used to hug her I'd be a bit scared because she'd be breathing heavily, but now when I hug her she's just breathing normally, at a good pace. It just feels really nice, her breath isn't all smoky and it just feels good to be around her.
How I quit smoking
Natalie talks about her experience of stopping smoking.
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How I quit smoking – video transcript
I decided to give up smoking because it been a large part of my life for too long. I hated how it made me feel and I tried to give up smoking before a couple of times and failed miserably. I was getting close to the 20-year point of smoking which wasn't making me feel very good at all.
I decided to get in touch with the NHS stop smoking service, their specialist service because I thought by having the right level of support it will probably help me to not want to smoke anymore and I'm so glad I got in touch with them because they were great right from the start, they offered me one to one time as well as a range of supportive mechanisms outside of that time such as patches and gum and little tabs that you put inside your mouth which I never even come across before and actually through having that support, that non-judgmental support, I was able to stop being a smoker.
Today is actually my four months anniversary of not being a smoker which is absolutely fantastic. My partner is so proud of me, my family's proud of me, my friends are proud of me, I'm proud of me. I'm so glad that I signed up for the service and that I can say that I'm a non-smoker.
E-cigarettes
Research has found that e-cigarettes, also known as vaping, can help you give up smoking. Learn more about using e-cigarettes to stop smoking on the NHS website.