During my second student nurse community placement, I was caring for a 63-year elderly of Caribbean descent with a history of smoking addiction. For confidentiality to be upheld in accordance with the Nursing and Midwifery Council The Code (NMC 2018), the patient has been given the pseudonym of Mr. Smith. He lived in a very cluttered terrace house in a poor condition which left him vulnerable, as he disclosed that the amount of money, he received from his pension could not accommodate the required renovations. Mr. Smith had recently undergone abdominal surgery and was transferred to the coronary care unit, for treatment following a minor myocardial infarction and was receiving administration of morphine to keep him comfortable. As a student nurse, and working under the supervision of my assessor, I was requested to calculate his body mass index. As well as recording a score as 32.6 kg/m2, which meant that he was classified as overweight, and his blood pressure was recorded at a steady 140/84mmHg. Mr. Smith disclosed that he had always been a heavy smoker, smoking around twent
y cigarettes a day since the age of twenty. Through the assessment, it became obvious that smoking was affecting his family life negatively as his daughter refused to let him spend time with his grandchild. As a result of this, Mr. Smith revealed that he was motivated to change, however as he had attempted unsuccessfully to quit several times. However, he believed that with the support of the Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) he could stop. I informed my practice assessor and she decided to give Mr. Smith more information about smoking services because he had chosen not to do so independently. This included the National Health Service (NHS) applications and the stop smoking websites, which aims to provide equal support to patients using a variety of different methods. A decision was made by the nurse and suggested to Mr. Smith that, he would work in partnership with the MDT towards enabling this goal to happen. My assessor further made a referral to the local NHS stop smoking service for Mr. Smith and explained the positive impacts that smoking cessation would have on his health.