FRESH SCOOPS ILLUSTRIOUS NATIONAL HEALTH AWARD
FRESH Smoke Free North East has won the illustrious Chief Medical Officer’s Public Health Awards 2009 for its work in tackling smoking.
The country’s first regional tobacco office, set up five years ago to reduce appalling smoking rates in the North East, scooped gold at the prestigious awards ceremony at the Royal College of Physicians in London.
The CMO Awards were set up to recognise teams, people and projects who have made a massive impact on helping to improve public health in
The North East had the biggest reduction in smoking nationwide between 2005 and 2007, from 29% of people smoking to around 22% - a drop of around 135,000 fewer people by the time
The judging panel felt that Fresh Smoke Free North East was an “excellent example of a well-coordinated and effective public health partnership approach to tackling a hugely important public health challenge.”
Councillor Nick Forbes, Chair of the Tobacco Regional Advisory Group, said: “This is an incredible achievement and reflects the enormous contribution Fresh has made to changing attitudes towards smoking in the North East.
“Ultimately it’s about helping people. Every person who doesn’t smoke is saving their loved ones a lifetime of worry, and saving themselves ill health and the risk of dying far too early.
But he added: “Smoking still kills thousands of people every year, 10,000 children in our region smoke and it is still our greatest cause of inequality in health depending on where someone lives. We still have a lot of work ahead of us in making smoking history for our region’s children.”
Dr Eugene Milne, deputy regional director of public health comments: “We realised a few years ago that to tackle this problem we needed to follow the lead of the best in the world. Smoking rates had fallen dramatically in
“Fresh has done a lot in a short space of time and, in particular, made a great contribution in lobbying for the legislation on smoking in public places introduced in
“Earlier this year the General Household Survey revealed that the number of smokers in the North East was at an all time low.
“Along with our excellent NHS Stop Smoking Services, Fresh can take substantial credit for that and continues to lead our efforts to cut the number of deaths from smoking-related diseases in the region every year - currently about 5,800 - even further.
“The CMO's Gold Award for this dedicated team is well deserved.”
Ailsa Rutter, Director of Fresh, said: “I was a nurse originally and looked after my dad with emphysema, so I’ve seen what smoking can do.
“I am proud of the Fresh team and the hard work of the NHS, local authorities, academics, voluntary and private sector, as well as the public, in tackling our biggest killer.
“Smoking affects everyone, whether it’s a family or an employer, and more and more people are seeing the benefits of quitting or not starting in the first place.
“We must continue to tackle this totally avoidable addiction. A major priority is to ensure that right across the region, we have the best NHS support for smokers to quit.
“We are also urging MPs in the House of Commons to show they too want to make smoking history for more children and put cigarettes out of sight and out of reach as part of new measures in the Health Bill”
The panel also said that the methods used by Fresh and lessons learned can be replicated without much difficulty in the other health regions in
Some of Fresh’s work includes:
· Campaigning for the smoke free law. The North East had the highest rate of responses to the Government’s consultation, and now 80% of people say they support “smokefree”
· Supporting NHS Stop Smoking Services to help smokers to quit
· Helping reduce smoking prevalence in the North East to its lowest ever figure.
· Raising awareness about the harm caused by second hand smoke to children
· Developing new plans to tackle tobacco smuggling
· Developing a ten year plan in 2009 and beyond to meet goals in Better Health Fairer Health, the region’s health and wellbeing strategy, to reduce smoking to the lowest in the country.
