Signed in as:
filler@godaddy.com
Project 1: Understanding the support that is currently available
The first project looked at the support offered to adult smokers with severe mental illness to assist them in changing their smoking behaviour and which factors help or hinder them. We also looked at what factors help healthcare professionals and mental health services provide smoking cessation support to people with severe mental illness.
Project 2: Co-designing a package of support based on what works
In the second project, we worked with people with severe mental illness who had received support to change their smoking behaviour during a mental health inpatient stay, their carers, and mental health professionals to design a new support package, based on what we know works. The package includes regular meetings with a trained professional as well as a resource folder and trackers for people to use in their own time, and access to an app which provides 24/7 access to trained smoking cessation advisors. Our support package is flexible to make sure it fits in with people’s lives and their own goals for change.
Project 3: Testing the support package and procedures, and finding out what needs to change
In the Spring of 2022, we conducted a small study to test the SCEPTRE package of support and our research materials and processes. The study showed that we could deliver the SCEPTRE intervention and that the participants who received the package found it useful. However, we also identified some areas that needed improvement and made necessary changes based on that feedback. One of the changes we made was the introduction of the Smoke Free App. This app will provide 24/7 access to experienced smoking cessation advisors and behavioural support.
Project 4: Testing the feasibility of the SCEPTRE support package
We opened our feasibility study in January 2024. Working with six NHS mental health trusts we will recruit 64 people who smoke and are currently admitted to a smokefree mental health ward. Half of the people recruited will receive the SCEPTRE support package when they leave hospital, and the others will continue to receive care as usual. At the end of the study, we will interview participants and the professionals who delivered the new support programme to find out what worked and didn’t work so well. We will then look at all the information we have collected and use it to make changes to our support package and our processes to ensure everything works as well as possible.
Project 5: Is the SCEPTRE support package effective and value for money?
Project five will be a large randomised controlled trial with over 670 participants who smoke and who are inpatients on acute adult mental health wards. Like in project four, participants will randomly be put into two groups - those who receive the SCEPTRE support package and those who receive their usual care so that we can compare how effective our support package is. We'll look at the costs of the new package to see if it provides value for money, the factors that help or hinder the delivery of the package, how well it fits with existing mental health services, and if the whole package was delivered and supported people as we intended.
Project 6: Bringing together our findings and making final changes to the SCEPTRE support package
Near the end of the programme we'll bring together all of our results about how the intervention is delivered and how it works to support people to change their smoking behaviour to make recommendations about how the package could be implemented into NHS services.