HOSPITAL bosses in the Bradford district have admitted they cannot control smoking in their grounds in the face of a new Government directive calling for a blanket ban to be enforced.

Public Health England (PHE) chief executive Duncan Selbie has written to every NHS Trust asking them to execute the ban after a study by the British Thoracic Society warned that NHS hospitals were falling”woefully short” of doing so.

The society’s review found that only one in ten hospitals are enforcing smoke-free environments in their premises and grounds.

But both Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke’s Hospital, and Airedale NHS Foundation, which runs Airedale General Hospital, said enforcing a ban - first introduced a decade ago - had proved impossible and they would continue to allow smoking in designated areas in hospital grounds.

A Bradford Hospitals spokesman said: “We operate a complete smoking ban – on cigarettes and e-cigarettes - inside all of our hospital buildings and we endeavour to keep all areas around our hospitals smoke-free but the problem with smokers, especially around our entrances, continues to give us cause for concern.

“Following consultation with key stakeholders we took the decision to reinstate smoking shelters in a positive effort to control tobacco smoking within our estate.

“We would prefer to be a completely smoke-free site but this is a pragmatic response to the challenge of policing the smoking ban, and by allowing people who must smoke to do so in a controlled area, we are protecting non-smokers from the dangers of second-hand smoke.

“However we would take this opportunity to call on smokers – particularly patients and visitors who continue to flout our policy – to refrain from smoking when on our grounds.

“Our clear desire is that patients and visitors are afforded a smoke-free, healthy and safe environment in which to receive care.

“We remain committed to protecting and improving the health of our staff, patients and visitors and all of our patients are encouraged to stop smoking before planned admission to our hospitals.”

David Moss, assistant director of estates and facilities at Airedale, said: “We restrict smoking to designated areas, and there are several smoking shelters around site.

“We’ve found designated areas are the best way of controlling smoking.”

Enforcing the ban has also led to complaints to unions by some frontline staff unhappy that they were being expected to do so.

Tony Pearson, regional head of health with Unison, Yorkshire and Humber, said: “Whatever the pros and cons in terms of health, Unison warned from the very start that this would be difficult to enforce and we also made it clear we would not be prepared to see our members placed in any danger of violence in doing so.”

Bradford District Care Trust, which runs Lynfield Mount in Bradford and the Airedale Centre for Mental Health, did not introduce a smoking ban until July last year but said it had no plans to re-introduce smoking areas.

Treating smoking related ill-health costs the NHS in the region an estimated £223 million a year.

PHE chief executive Mr Selbie said: “It is very disappointing that only one in ten hospitals enforce a completely smokefree environment on their premises.

“We want to see a truly tobacco-free NHS where every hospital’s buildings and grounds are completely smoke-free.

“Twenty five per cent of patients in hospital are smokers. I believe we can make the NHS a place that provides a supportive tobacco-free environment for patients, staff and visitors, where helping people quit is fully integrated into their treatment.”

Wendy Preston, head of Nursing Practice at the RCN, said: “The NHS does need to send the right message to smokers about the consequences to their health and has a crucial role in ensuring that patients are able to get the help they need to give up.”

“The RCN backs efforts to reduce smoking, including helping nurses themselves to stop smoking. Staff health and wellbeing has a significant impact on care, so we know that both patients as well as nurses need to get the right support.”

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