London, 8^th October 2009, An innovative scheme to use mobile technology to obtain a patient’s current smoking status and invite ‘quitters’ for Smoking Cessation services, has proved a great success in NHS Hammersmith and Fulham.  NHS Hammersmith and Fulham have a smoking prevalence of 24.2% and are committed to cutting that number down every year.  [Read More]

Recent GP led text messaging campaigns have highlighted the effectiveness of iPLATO Patient Care Messaging for the identification of smokers in Barking & Dagenham PCT. Results from the first 10 surgeries to run the campaign have revealed average patient response rates of 46% - a major improvement when compared with alternative methods of collecting the same information.  [Read More]

GP surgeries in Islington have found that using text messaging for smoking cessation campaigns (getting smokers to quit) is six times more effective than traditional ways of contacting patients. Leading Islington practices 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.

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