About the Supporting a Smokefree Pregnancy and Smokefree Families programme

This elearning programme focuses on the delivery of very brief advice (VBA) on smoking to pregnant women or those who have recently given birth, including carbon monoxide monitoring. There are specific films and power point resources for both midwives and health visitors, but all are relevant across the whole midwifery and early years team.

NICE guidance recommends that all women are offered CO testing at antenatal appointments, with those having elevated levels referred for specialist support to stop smoking. Health visitors should also be supporting women and families to be smokefree, during, after and before future pregnancy.

Smoking during pregnancy is the largest modifiable risk factor for a range of adverse pregnancy outcomes and VBA is a proven intervention that has the potential to improve the health, and even save the life, of both mother and baby. Exposure to secondhand smoke is also a risks to the health of women, foetus and new born baby.

Although rates have been declining, there are still more than 60,000 babies born each year in England to mothers who have smoked during pregnancy.

All staff coming into contact with pregnant women, new mothers and their families have a role to play in triggering quit attempts and delivering very brief advice on smoking.

These resources are aimed at helping members of midwifery, health visiting and early years teams to deliver very brief advice (VBA) on smoking to their patients.

Consisting of an on-line training programme, some short films demonstrating the intervention in practice and two sets of powerpoint slides providing detailed background and references, this suite of resource should be used as an introduction to delivering advice on smoking, as a refresher for more experienced practitioners or to supplement local face to face training.

More information

These elearning resources consist of a range of materials that will enable you to:

• Describe the main effects of smoking upon the health of mother and baby
• Understand the patterns and prevalence of smoking among pregnant women
• Provide an overview of VBA (ASK, ADVISE, ACT) and where this fits into the care pathway
• Establish smoking status (ASK), including CO screening
• Advise women on the best way of stopping smoking or managing their exposure to smoke (ADVISE)
• Support women to quit or manage their exposure to smoke (ACT)
• Deal with issues as they arise

There are a series of short film clips demonstrating each of the key elements and how to respond to situations or questions that may arise. Information is provided on the harms of smoking, the importance of having a brief meaning conversation about smoking and how to integrate this into routine practice. There are also links to further information and resources, and a self-assessment to check learning.

A certificate is available for completion of the full on-line training module. To obtain the certificate learners will need to pass the final self-assessment.

How to access

In order to access the Supporting a Smokefree Pregnancy and Smokefree Families programme, you will need an elfh account. If you do not have one, then you can register by selecting the Register button below.

Register >

To view the Supporting a Smokefree Pregnancy and Smokefree Families programme, select the View button below. If you already have an account with elfh, you will also be able to login and enrol on the programme from the View button.

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NHS healthcare staff in England

The Supporting a Smokefree Pregnancy and Smokefree Families programme is also available to NHS healthcare staff via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). Accessing this elearning via ESR means that your completions will transfer with you throughout your NHS career.

Further details are available here.

Not an NHS organisation?

If you are not an NHS health or care organisation and therefore do not qualify for free access elfh Hub, you may be able to access the service by creating an OpenAthens account.

To check whether or not you qualify for free access via OpenAthens, you can view the eligibility criteria and register on the ‘OpenAthens’ portal.

Registering large numbers of users

If you are a HR, IT or Practice Manager and would like to register and enrol large numbers of staff within your organisation for access onto the Supporting a Smokefree Pregnancy and Smokefree Families programme, please contact elfh directly.

Organisations wishing to use their own LMS

For HR departments wanting to know more about gaining access to courses using an existing Learning Management System please contact elfh directly to express interest.

More information

Please select the following link for more information on how to use the elfh Hub.