Harmful air where we should feel most safe: addressing health inequalities using a QI approach to tackle smoking on a hospital site

A quality improvement project at a large North East England teaching hospital targeted smoking near maternity and neonatal entrances. Interventions included tannoy announcements and engagement by Tobacco Dependency Advisors (TDAs). Smoking episodes fell by 38% over 7 weeks. Both Tobacco Dependency Advisor (TDA) presence and regular tannoy announcements were independently associated with significant reductions, with little aggression reported. The project highlighted the need for ongoing interventions and has since been expanded hospital-wide.