A HOSPITAL trust in East Lancashire has scooped a national award for inspiring its staff to ditch the dreaded weed.

The timely prize for Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley NHS Trust comes as millions of smokers across the UK were today urged to kick the habit.

The trust has scooped the No Smoking Day 1996 Supportive Employers' Award after being nominated by former smoker David Pilkington who works at Queen's Park Hospital as a monitoring officer.

He earned himself £200-worth of Boots vouchers for his nomination which he has kindly donated to the £1 million SuperScan appeal.

The award is given to the company which has given most support to its employees when implementing a smoking policy.

The trust's no smoking policy was introduced on January 1, 1995, although staff had been encouraged to give up smoking during the previous year.

A series of smoking cessation training sessions were organised through the Health Promotion Unit which trained staff to help colleagues to stop smoking. The occupational health department also set up a smoking cessation programme which gave staff the opportunity to receive individual counselling, health education and nicotine replacement therapy.

A staff fitness centre was also opened in 1995 with qualified trainers on hand to provide personal programmes, instruction, advice and aerobic classes.

Healthy eating options were also introduced within staff restaurants and computerised nutritional analysis was provided.

The award was presented to the trust by No Smoking Day Campaign Director Julie Buckler.

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