Meet the team – tobacco dependency treatment services

Maria Taylor is the tobacco dependency treatment lead at South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Since joining the trust in 1997 as a nurse in the care of the elderly department, Maria has held several key positions before moving into cancer services in July 2022.

Maria has been a key member in forming the trust’s tobacco dependency treatment initiative and service to support inpatients to quit smoking. Her work involves offering support to patients referred to her team by staff such as nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), behavioural therapy or signposting them onto the community smoking cessation services.

She aims to identify champions in each inpatient clinical area and works with key stakeholders to support both staff and patients to quit smoking.

Dominique Dillon's key roles as a tobacco dependency treatment advisor include going through smoker status reports received daily and reviewing the potential smokers list to check and share updates.

Dominique regularly assesses inpatients on wards who smoke and offers VBA (very brief advice) to support them in a quit attempt or abstain from smoking during their hospital stay and also discuss NRT treatment options whilst liaising with clinical staff to prescribe NRT.

She is also at the helm of providing various support to patients who want to quit smoking such as behaviour therapy or referral to local authority community smoking cessation services.

Ellie Young joined the trust in 2013 as a volunteer on central delivery suite at The James Cook University Hospital. Since then, she has gone onto become a healthcare assistant at Friarage Hospital and a qualified midwife from the University of York in 2017.

Her role involves improving the health and wellbeing of women and birthing individuals across South Tees and North Yorkshire. She is also at the forefront of increasing the vaccination update in pregnancy, improving the mental health of pregnant individuals and helping them to reduce their alcohol and drug consumption in pregnancy.

Working together with a team that share the same passion of helping pregnant individuals throughout their pregnancy, Ellie strives to promote healthy weight in pregnancy and aims to reduce the incidence of smoking during delivery.

Since joining the trust in June 2023, Sharon is actively supporting pregnant smokers to be smokefree and facilitate a smokefree future for the child and its parent.

She helps plan an effective smoking cessation pathway with pregnant smokers and advises on several alternatives such as nicotine replacement therapy to help them quit smoking.

Sharon also regularly checks up on pregnant smokers by calling them or paying a visit in their homes whilst making them aware about the harmful effects of smoking on the unborn child and its parent.

As a maternity support worker, Catherine Moore supports pregnant smokers and encourages them to quit smoking.

She offers one-to-one support to pregnant smokers throughout their pregnancy and educates them and their family members on the dangers of smoking on their unborn child whilst highlighting the benefits of quitting smoking.

Catherine also helps pregnant smokers explore a variety of alternatives such as nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) to support their journey to quit smoking.

Nazihah joined the trust in May 2022 as a maternity support worker.

She works alongside individuals throughout their pregnancy journey and provides information about the importance of public health in pregnancy and the negative effects of smoking during pregnancy.

Nazihah takes pride in helping pregnant smokers in leading a smokefree and healthy life by introducing them to treatments such as nicotine replacement therapy and one-to-one support sessions.