SCaH Outstanding Achievement Award 2026 Voting

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Nominee 1: Theresa Shortland, Thrive Tribe

Theresa Shortland, Smoking Cessation Lead at Thrive Tribe since September 2019, has transformed stop smoking support across Lincolnshire through innovative, inclusive, and partnership-driven approaches that have delivered measurable impact.

Recognising that traditional stop smoking services do not reach everyone equally, Theresa has championed new ways of engaging underserved populations. Through strong partnership working, she has helped develop specialist support for people experiencing homelessness, residents of hard-to-reach coastal communities, and routine and manual workers—groups that often face significant barriers to accessing healthcare support. She has also introduced non-English language stop smoking sessions, ensuring that language is not a barrier to receiving effective support to quit smoking.

These innovations have enabled the service to reach more people, reduce inequalities, and improve outcomes for communities that have historically been underrepresented in stop smoking programmes. Theresa's ability to identify unmet needs and turn ideas into practical, accessible services has been fundamental to the success of the Lincolnshire programme.

Alongside these innovations, Theresa has successfully led the service through multiple commissioning, funding, and outcome framework changes while consistently delivering exceptional performance. Under her leadership, Lincolnshire has risen from 10th to 3rd place in the NHS stop smoking league tables for total quits, and the service has supported 17,502 people to successfully quit smoking since 2019.

Theresa's vision, positivity, and determination to make support accessible to everyone have delivered lasting, measurable improvements in health outcomes, making her an exceptionally deserving recipient of this Innovation Award.
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Nominee 2: North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust

I would like to nominate my team for the SCAH Achievement Award in recognition of our exceptional dedication, innovation, and commitment to improving patient outcomes through smoking cessation support.

Despite significant staff shortages over the last 10 months, my team has consistently met all key performance targets and continued to deliver a high-quality service. Our data demonstrates steady growth in the number of people seen who go on to commence a quit attempt, reflecting the team's determination and effectiveness in helping people to stop smoking.

My team has embraced innovation and service improvement by successfully introducing the Smoke Free App, providing inpatients, outpatients and visitors with additional digital smoking cessation support. We also designed and implemented a discharge leaflet for inpatients, ensuring patients receive clear information and continued support following discharge.

In addition, my team has made a significant contribution to workforce development by embedding smoking cessation training within the Preceptorship Programme for newly qualified nurses and Foundation Doctors. We have also delivered targeted ward based training to doctors working in A & E, Acute medical unit, Respiratory and Gastroenterology as they are key points of admission and patient flow thereby creating stronger links with other wards. This has increased awareness, confidence, and engagement in supporting patients to quit smoking.

Throughout a challenging period, my team has demonstrated resilience, collaboration, and a relentless focus on patient care. Despite reduced staffing levels, we have not only maintained performance but have continued to innovate, educate colleagues, and expand the reach of the service.
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Nominee 3: Florence Aku, Greater Manchester MH NHSFT

The Greater Manchester Mental Health (GMMH) Treating Tobacco Dependency Team Lead has demonstrated exceptional leadership in transforming tobacco dependency treatment across the Trust, placing smoking cessation at the heart of mental healthcare and improving access to evidence-based support for thousands of patients.

Through their vision and determination, they established a dedicated Trust-wide Treating Tobacco Dependency service, achieving 100% coverage across GMMH and ensuring identified smokers are proactively contacted and offered support within 24 hours. They led the development and implementation of a standardised treatment pathway, creating a consistent and effective approach across a large and complex organisation.

Committed to innovation and quality improvement, they championed digital solutions and developed a robust performance dashboard that provides real-time oversight of activity, outcomes and service performance. Their work has also strengthened NHS data quality processes, improving clinical recording, reporting and accountability.

Beyond service delivery, they established the Trust's Smoke-Free Steering Group, implemented a Trust-wide NRT protocol, created a network of Smoke-Free Champions, and led the introduction of mandatory Smoke-Free and Very Brief Advice (VBA) training. These initiatives have driven significant cultural change and increased staff confidence in supporting people who smoke.

They have also embedded lived experience in service development and built strong partnerships with community providers and neighbouring mental health trusts, helping to spread best practice and ensure continuity of care.

Their leadership, innovation and commitment have delivered lasting improvements and make them an outstanding candidate for this award.
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Nominee 4: Sarah Riches, CNTW NHSFT

Sarah joined the Tobacco Dependence Treatment Service in January 2026 and has already made an exceptional impact within our Community Early Implementer Site pilot, supporting patients within our Community Treatment Teams.

New to the role, Sarah quickly immersed herself in learning how to effectively engage and support people with severe mental illness to address their tobacco dependence. She has shown real initiative, confidence and compassion, building trust with a population that can often be difficult to engage.

Sarah has been particularly innovative in her approach. Rather than relying solely on referrals, she proactively engages patients in reception and waiting areas, starting conversations about smoking, undertaking carbon monoxide readings, explaining the harms of smoking and benefits of quitting, and encouraging patients to access support. Her approachable and person-centred style has enabled her to reach individuals who may otherwise not have engaged with treatment.

The results speak for themselves. Since January, Sarah has supported nine patients to achieve a 12-week quit, with a further five patients currently at four weeks quit, five more having set quit dates, and 21 patients actively engaged in a harm reduction programme.

Sarah deserves this award because she has embraced a challenging new role and is already changing lives. Her dedication, enthusiasm and ability to engage patients have helped people take positive steps towards a smoke-free future, reducing the risk of smoking-related illness and improving both health and quality of life within a population that experiences significant health inequalities.
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Nominee 5: Wendy Griffiths, Rotherham NHSFT

Wendy has just at the start of July, taken early retirement after working tirelessly for 25 years for the Smoking in Pregnancy service in Rotherham. Wendy along with the then service manager in Rotherham developed the initial idea of the 'Risk Perception Intervention', which assesses the patients risk and how they view the risk of smoking to their pregnancy and health.

Originally nicknamed the Rotherham Model, Wendy and Lisa Fendall who also worked in Rotherham trained all of the local midwives and successfully integrated the model into Rotherham Midwifery services. The training was then, in partnership with Newcastle University rolled out nationally and Lisa left her role in Rotherham to deliver the training.

Wendy remained as lead for the smoking in pregnancy team until her recent retirement, seeing the service through organisational and structural changes, but always keeping the women she and her colleagues help at the heart of everything that she and the service did.

I know that Wendy is proud of everything she has achieved in her career, and has lived and breathed smoking cessation, and her legacy is not only the Risk Perception Intervention, but also helping reduce smoking in pregnancy prevalence in Rotherham by well over half.

This nomination is also supported by Rotherham Councils public health team, who agree that her knowledge, experience and commitment will leave a huge gap in the Rotherham Smoking in Pregnancy team.
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Nominee 6: Greg Dimelow, Pennine Care NHSFT

Greg’s contribution to Pennine Care’s Treating Tobacco Dependency inpatient pathways has been outstanding. Through determination, clinical insight and compassionate leadership, he has transformed how tobacco dependence is understood and supported across inpatient mental health services.

Greg has championed the principle that smoking is not simply a lifestyle choice, but a treatable dependency requiring timely, skilled and non-judgemental support from admission through to discharge. Most impressively, he helped roll out the inpatient pathway in less than six months, strengthening ward processes, staff confidence, access to nicotine replacement therapy and vapes, and safer responses to withdrawal, relapse prevention and patient distress.

This achievement is especially significant given the restraints of limited funding, workforce capacity and competing operational pressures. Rather than allowing these barriers to reduce ambition, Greg worked creatively and persistently, building relationships, influencing practice and keeping patients at the centre of every improvement.

Staff describe his way of working and managing as truly inclusive: he listens, values different perspectives, supports learning and brings people with him, making change feel achievable rather than imposed.

His impact is particularly important for people with severe mental illness (SMI) who are disproportionately affected by smoking-related disease, premature mortality, deprivation and poorer access to preventative healthcare. By driving forward compassionate, tobacco dependency support, Greg has helped Pennine Care reduce avoidable harm among some of the hardest hit patient groups.

His leadership has not only shaped a pathway, it has shifted culture, challenged inequality and created a more hopeful, healthier future for patients with an SMI.
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