EMS Healthcare on the road with new stop smoking campaign

The 9-week ‘How old are your lungs?’ Roadshow for NHS Greenwich will target smokers in populations known to have poorer health outcomes locally, including men, black and ethnic minority communities and manual workers. It will visit five sites per week from January, typically supermarkets and retail parks, returning later each week to offer follow-up support to smokers. 

Visitors to the roadshow will be offered an interactive lung age test to demonstrate the effects of smoking on the individual - a well evidenced technique to encourage smokers to quit. NHS Greenwich’s Stop Smoking advisers will be on board to offer support and quitting advice to smokers.

It’s the latest in a series of high-impact ‘stop smoking’ campaigns delivered by healthcare roadshow expert EMS Healthcare. A previous roadshow for NHS Newham generated 6,339 visitors over 12 weeks; impressively over 80% went on to take a lung age test on board the unit and 849 signed up to quit through their scheme.

Wendy Elcome, Health Improvement Principle in Public Health at NHS Greenwich said: “We have a well-established and successful Stop Smoking Service in Greenwich and we’re confident that we can support more local smokers to quit by going on the road in January. This innovative campaign will take the Stop Smoking Service support to where our priority populations live and work, potentially having a significant impact on reducing smoking prevalence and health inequalities locally.”

Keith Austin, Chief Executive Officer of EMS Healthcare said: “We are delighted to work with NHS Greenwich on this campaign. We know from past roadshows that face-to-face engagement really works in conveying messages and health-related behaviour change in this very challenging area of health promotion.”