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Comprehensive smoking policies
Purpose
To develop clear policies and support addressing smoking at multiple levels in your organisation.
Why this step is important
Your organisation’s smoking policies form the foundation of your Tackling Tobacco plan. Policies on smoking need to be well thought out, clearly articulated and widely known within your organisation. This process takes some time to complete as it is important to get feedback from everyone who will be affected.
Completion time
4-6 months
Who to involve
- Executives
- Mangers
- Policy staff
- Operation staff including carer
Steps to implement
If your organisation already has a smoking policy, it is important to review the content and ensure that it is comprehensive. Service environments should be as smoke free as possible. A complete ban on smoking is preferable because it provides the best protection and is easiest to implement and enforce, but some organisations choose to set aside designated smoking areas.
Consulting key internal stakeholders is a good strategy for assisting implementation and ensuring that it is well accepted. This step allows concerns or key issues to be addressed.
Once the policy has been reviewed and revised, a plan is necessary to assist in the implementation of the policy so that all staff are aware of any changes and how it impacts their roles.
Implementation plans should have the policy objectives and implementation activities; highlight critical intermediate and final results; and identify staff responsible for implementation.
Implementing the identified actions of the plan and having clear communication across the organisation is key to creating change.
Reviewing a policy will help to evaluate whether the policy is achieving its intended purpose. This should be performed yearly.