Submitted by Mike Grenville on Wed, 28 Mar 2007 17:44

Using text messaging for smoking getting smokers to quit is six times more effective than traditional ways of contacting patients doctor surgeries in Islington have found.

Doctor surgeries in the London borough of Islington using the iPLATO text messaging system have reported patient response rates of 30% (versus a response rate of 5% using letters). By isolating patients on their GP system, surgeries can send out a text message asking patients to text back their current smoking status. Patients who indicate that they are still smokers and trying to quit are then invited to smoking cessation clinics.

“We sent a text message to 200 patients telling them that we were updating their medical record and asked – ‘pls. text back current non smoker; smoker & are you ready to quit?’. Any patients indicating that they were still smoking were invited for smoking cessation support”, explains Charlotte Blyth, Practice Manager at the Elizabeth Avenue Surgery.

“Using letters and even calling up patients to invite them to the surgery is a huge drain on surgery resources and staff time" she said. "With the iPLATO system we can contact hundreds of patients instantly without having to stuff a single envelope. Many of our own surgery staff were amazed at the rapid response, as the majority of patients responded within minutes. If we had run the same campaign using letters we would generally have to wait a few days to get any response.”

To put this initiative into perspective, 33.5% of the adult population in Islington smoke, compared to 26.5% in North Central London and 27.5% in England as a whole. Approximately 39 people per 10,000 die of smoking related causes in Islington, a rate higher than other boroughs in North Central London and London as a whole.

David Thomas Head of Information at Islington Primary Care Trust who has led the expansion of the iPLATO text messaging service said, “Text messaging has a huge role to play in the way surgeries communicate with their patients, the immediacy and convenience of this medium has been illustrated by the positive results experienced by many of our surgeries. Islington PCT is dedicated to using innovative technologies to enhance patient services while giving patient greater choice in the way in which they receive health information; we see text messaging as one of the technologies.”