Smoking cessation support in New Zealand is guided by national Smokefree and public health strategies overseen by Te Whatu Ora. General practices play a key role in identifying people who smoke and offering brief advice and support to quit.
Smoking ABC
The New Zealand Ministry of Health's 2021 guidelines reinforce the ABC approach as the standard of care for helping people to stop smoking.
- Ask about and document every person's smoking status, and update it regularly (e.g., annually).
- Briefly advise every person who smokes to stop, regardless of their motivation or desire to quit at that moment. This advice can be delivered in as little as 30 seconds and can be linked to the patient's personal health condition or family circumstances.
- Cessation support should be strongly encouraged and offered to all who smoke. This involves offering access to evidence-based behavioural support (e.g., referral to the national Quitline) and prescribing stop-smoking medicines like nicotine replacement therapy (NRT).
Screening Criteria Eligibility
- All smokers enrolled in practice.
- Are eligible for public health services in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Who contacts patients?
For Smoking cessation and support:
- General Practice provides support and referrals to stop smoking provider
- General Practice provides smoking cessations remedies
- Quitline
- Local STOP smoking services
The role of the general practice
General practices play a supportive and trusted role in encouraging patients to quit.
Practices are typically required to:
- Identify smoking status
- Provide brief advice to encourage a person to quit
- Provide Smoking Cessation or refer to a STOP Smoking provider
How to Recall your patients with Vensa on Medtech Evolution
Run CBIT report
In order for recalls to be sent correctly, it is recommend to run a quick CBIT report to see if there are any patients that are current smokers, but do not have the correct smoking status captured. There are five different CBIT reports (CBIT > SCREENING > SMOKING...) that might support you in identifying patients with incoherent records. Review these report regularly before undertaking your recalls.
Using recalls and automation to support smoking brief advice
With Vensa, you can automate the recall process that supports amoking ASK and smoking brief advice. For a demo walkthrough video, click here.
The Vensa automation:
- Runs on a scheduled basis
- Scans the PMS to identify patients who are recorded as current smokers and have not had any brief advice in the last 12 months, or patients over the age of 15 who do not have a smoking status recorded
- Sends an automatic text message containing a secure link.
Through this link, patients can:
- Confirm or update their smoking status
- Receive brief advice and be directed to http://smokefree.org.nz or https://quit.org.nz/
- Indicate whether they would like support to quit
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Submit their response directly to the practice.
Patient responses are written back into the PMS, helping practices keep smoking status information up to date and identify patients who may want follow-up support.
This recall automation is fully included in all TXT2Remind plans. For more information or to enable this for your clinic at no additional cost, please get in touch with support@vensa.com
This page is provided for general information only. While we aim to keep content accurate and up to date, we do not guarantee completeness or accuracy. Screening programmes, eligibility, and delivery may change. For the most current and official information, please refer to Te Whatu Ora at info.health.nz.