It's almost Pythonesque, the numbers of people who are being trained specifically to stop others from smoking with (or without) the use of drugs.
As mentioned at the beginning of the year the UK National Smoking Cessation Conference takes place in June, this year in London. I described in then as a trade conference, but it is even more serious than that. It's a training agency, aiming to train and give certification to people who want to develop competence in their role of smoking cessation advisers/practitioners.
Behind the UKNSCC however looms another organisation, National Centre for Smoking Cessation Training (NCSCT), created from a winning bid by a consortium led by University College London to provide an accreditation system for smoking cessation advisers. (Is this what Tony Blair meant all those years ago by 'Education, Education, Education'?)
The organisation does have an 'ethical policy', which shows its main players have 'interests which might have a bearing on the independence of their judgement in relation to their work for the NCSCT': namely that they have received hospitality from Pfizer (manufacturer of Champix), or the Department of Health.
Here is their quarterly report for April to June 2010, which includes the news that 'On the 27th May 2010 the NCSCT was officially informed that it is now an ISO 9001 certified organisation (certificate number: FS 559421)'. Well, that's also reassuring. As is the long list of links.
Transatlantic allies offer full accreditation for smoking cessation-related activities across the pond (supported by Pfizer). Isn't it nice that we'll soon have as many words for smoking cessation as the eskimos have for snow?
Book here for the conference in London. You'll probably get a refund from your employer, and maybe something for accommodation (it's only London after all!)
2 comments:
At this rate anti-smoking will become the number one international economic driving force, the number one industry and the only place hiring, where all the best jobs will be. It's actually quite disgusting when I think of it in those terms, yet realistic and reasonable apparently to so think.
I think perhaps it would have been better to give them a different certification, one under section 28 of the Mental Health act fits the bill, in hindsight though why should the the those already certified have to have these anti-smokers foisted upon them?
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