29 Nov 2011

Public hospitals doing more to help smokers quit

4:05 pm on 29 November 2011

Latest reports on the Government's health targets show public hospitals are doing more to help smokers quit.

Health Minister Tony Ryall on Tuesday released quarterly results for the six targets.

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The greatest improvement among the targets is in what district health boards are doing to help smokers quit.

Overall, their effort improved by 3.5% over the past three months.

However, all but five DHBs still strive to achieve the target of giving 95% of hospitalised smokers advice and help to quit.

Once again, DHBs have boosted the amount of non-urgent surgery.

However, they slipped slightly against the target of shorter stays in emergency departments and are struggling with improving diabetes and cardiovascular services.

Mr Ryall says the latter target is of little benefit to patients and is under review.