Mental health services in Barnet are making their premises smoke-free to reduce the number of patients dependent on nicotine for stress relief.

People with mental health problems die between 10 and 20 years earlier than the national average, usually because they tend to smoke more heavily and develop smoking-related diseases.

Barnet, Enfield and Haringey mental health NHS trust (BEH) launched its ‘SmokeFree’ project on Tuesday (January 17), meaning smoking is not permitted anywhere on BEH premises or grounds.

All inpatients will be offered a range of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) within 30 minutes of admission, and they will be allowed to use e-cigarette alternatives.

BEH medical director Jonathan Bindman said: “Smoking is a major cause of premature death in service users.

“While we recognise how hard it is to stop smoking, we must take the opportunity to do something which is essential for people’s long-term health and support them to quit.”

There will be nicotine patches, lozenges, and sprays to hand, all of which help reduce cravings and patients in the community will also be supported to quit or reduce their cigarette intake.

Assistant clinical director for Barnet Bob Ryan said: “We are committed to helping our service users maintain a healthy lifestyle and one way of doing this is to support them in going smoke free when in our inpatient ward.

“We have appropriately trained staff on hand to support this and offer active encouragement to not smoke when an inpatient.

“This may also impact on future smoking habit and enhance the service users quality of life with improved physical health.”