REBEL WITH A CAUSE
The nation’s favourite TV doctor recalls his fight with the Government to help smokers give cigarettes the boot
DR CHRIS STEELE is an unlikely rebel and it’s even harder to imagine Britain’s favourite on- screen medic pushing a patient to the point of physical sickness before electrocuting them. But Chris has done all this and more during an extraordinary career.
Twenty- seven years ago the Manchester GP agreed to appear on what was then a new TV show called This Morning. In part it was a favour for two patients called Richard and Judy but it was largely because his children wanted to see their dad on television.
“It was September,” he recalls. “I ended up saying, ‘ OK, I’ll do it until Christmas and then you’ll have to find someone else’.”
When he first set foot in the studio, Chris, who is now 70, was already an authority on smoking cessation and no stranger to public appearances but he admits that live TV was “absolutely terrifying”.
“I would spend 12 hours researching the subject we were covering just to make sure I was an expert for 10 minutes,” he says.
His painstaking preparation and approachable manner were a hit with viewers and Chris was quick to realise television’s potential. “The media is a very powerful platform for health education. Most people don’t read the leaflets in waiting rooms – they read the newspapers or watch TV.”
Encouraging as many people as possible to improve their health turned Chris into a rebel with a cause in a David and Goliath- style stand off with the Department of Health.
It all began with a sickening form of smoking cessation therapy. “I was helping smokers quit using aversion therapy,” he explains. “First they stood in a cubicle the size of a phone kiosk. There was a mirror in front of them and a shelf littered with ash and fag ends.”
PATIENTS were told to light two cigarettes, one for each hand and to watch themselves in the mirror as Chris gave instructions. “Left hand cigarette, inhale, hold for five seconds and out again. Right hand cigarette, inhale, hold…”
And so it would continue until the rapid build up of nicotine and other chemicals in their bloodstream took effect.
“Their legs would go weak and they would try to hold on to the shelf, then it would become difficult to lift their hand to their mouth.” As soon as their eyelids began to droop Chris knew it was only seconds before they would vomit.
Once they had, they were given 15 minutes to recover before the second phase. This time they smoked one cigarette but at some point between picking it up, taking a puff and returning it to the ashtray, Chris administered a short, sharp, electric shock.
At the time, electro- aversion therapy and willpower were the only options for smokers trying to quit, so when nicotine replacement gum was first licensed in the early 1980s, Chris was quick to start prescribing it.
But the Department of Health ruled that the gum could not be covered by the NHS as it was not a “drug” and started deducting the cost of the scripts from his GP income. When that didn’t deter Chris, they hauled him before a series of disciplinary hearings.
Finally, after a barrister paid for by the Medical Defence Union “wiped the fl oor” with the department’s expert, a tribunal concluded that nicotine was not only a drug but the gum was the most effective smoking cessation treatment available.
Now, 30 years later, nicotine replacement therapy is such a mainstay of Department of Health campaigns it is hard to understand the fuss, although if the Government drags its feet on recommending safe versions of e- cigarettes you get the feeling Chris will have a new battle to fight.
Attitudes to smoking and giving it up are among changes to the NHS and the nation’s health that Chris has witnessed. He admits: “I despair with the obesity problem. Being overweight is almost classed as normal and the huge increase in diabetes could bankrupt the NHS.”
On the fl ip side he welcomes the way we can now talk about cancer, as the utter dread which once surrounded “the big C” is being stripped away by improved diagnosis and a new generation of targeted cancer treatments.
Chris has had his own health challenges, too. Five years ago he discovered he was intolerant to wheat and was diagnosed as a coeliac. And unknown to many viewers, he also wears a hearing aid.
He says: “When your hearing goes, one of the first things people notice is that you start turning the TV up because you can’t hear. I didn’t think too much of it,” he says. “I’m getting on in years and these things happen.”
BUT it started to become a nuisance during his TV appearances and when he eventually had a hearing test and tried some of the latest digital hearing aids, Chris wondered why he had waited so long.
“When I had them fitted I came out of the shop and it was like hearing in technicolour,” he says. “I could hear the leaves crunch under my feet. When your hearing goes, you lose it very slowly so you don’t notice what you’re missing.”
And hearing aids have come on a lot. “The technology is remarkable,” he says. Chris wears behind- the- ear devices but says: “Most of the time no one can see them. The girls in the make- up department didn’t notice until I pointed them out.”
He adds: “I control my aids from my smartphone. I go to a noisy restaurant and turn the volume up, then go back in two weeks’ time and GPS sets them at the same level. They really are fantastic.”
But there’s only one thing Chris doesn’t like about his hearing aids. “I wish there was a better term. I’d like to call them hearing improvers or hearing enhancers,” he says.
Amplifon, the world’s leading hearing specialist offers free hearing tests and a no- obligation opportunity to try the latest digital devices. Freephone 0808 149 2681 or visit amplifon. co. uk/ express