Dr Chris Steele: Rebel with a cause

TV doc Chris Steele had a massive legal battle against the government

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 natural manner was 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.” 

I wish there was a better term. I’d like to call them hearing improvers or hearing enhancers

Chris Steele

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. 

“The legs would go weak and they would try to hold onto 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 the nicotine replacement gum was first licensed in the early Eighties, 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 floor” 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 difficult 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 another battle on his hands. 

Attitudes to smoking and smoking cessation are one of many 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.”