THE chief executive of Nottingham's hospitals has called on people to kick the habit and stub out their cigarettes.
Peter Homa is asking smokers to stop lighting up at the Queen's Medical Centre or City Hospital and he is also encouraging people to challenge those who do.
People are already banned from smoking immediately outside the two hospitals. It was introduced in 2006, but signs continue to be ignored.
And now, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has called for NHS hospitals and clinics to put renewed energy into becoming completely smoke-free, creating a culture where smoking is no longer considered the norm.
Peter Homa, chief executive at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs both the Queens Medical Centre and City Hospital, has backed the guidelines.
"As the leader of a hospital which too often picks up the pieces when smokers can't give up, I feel nothing but support for the new guidelines issued by Nice." he said:
"I am only too conscious that, six years after smoking was banned at workplaces, I see smokers every day at QMC and City Hospitals, often puffing away directly under 'No Smoking' signs.
"The most obvious gathering of smokers at QMC is at the front entrance. It's highly visible, but worse than that, it's directly outside the maternity unit and children's hospital, where some of our smallest and most fragile patients are being cared for."
He added: "Not only does it bother me, it matters to our patients, their relatives and staff.
"Smoking on our hospital site just doesn't sit comfortably with me and it creates a poor impression of what the trust stands for.
"Non-smokers are subject to secondary smoke and it's a poor example to children. We have to divert resources from clinical services to stopping smoking and clearing away butt-ends.
"If you're a smoker, please think twice before lighting up on site. If you're not, if you feel confident it won't put you in danger, challenge smokers you see outside our hospitals, especially outside the QMC main entrance, and the maternity unit at City.
"This is a problem that everyone has to work together to tackle."
Smoking is responsible for over 460,000 hospital admissions in England each year, and is the single biggest preventable cause of death - nearly 80,000 lives per year.
Professor John Britton, who led the development of this guidance and is director of the UK centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies at the University of Nottingham, said stopping smoking must be an NHS priority.
"If you provide the support people need, medications they need, the behavioural support and counselling they need, immediately and you put them in an environment where they are not seeing the drivers of smoking, like people standing outside the ward doorway or standing in the car park, then they can achieve it. That's what this guidance is all about, "he added.
This week, NICE said patients who smoke should be offered smoking cessation drugs, nicotine patches, and counselling as soon as they are admitted to acute, maternity or mental health setting to encourage them to quit.
It has also recommended that NHS staff, visitors, and family members should be encouraged to stop smoking as part of a cultural shift in the way the NHS tackles smoking.
When the Post smoke to smokers in Nottingham, they were less positive.
Shetal Vandra, 35, from Basford, said: "I think they should be allowed. Being a smoker we are pushed out everywhere.
"It's outside anyway – where are they expecting people to go?"
