To think stopping hospital staff smoking within the grounds

[Sparklingbrook]

will cause no end of problems?

here

On paper it's a good thing but can it actually be done?

The local hospital to us did this. Then after a year or so they revoked it and put the smoking shelters back. It looked awful to have staff out on the road smoking and the only alternative would have been to discipline them I guess - which wouldn't have been very productive.

My massive local hospital has also recently banned smoking in its grounds. I wish they would go a bit further and ban The Burger King outlet in the Food Court, but that makes money for the Trust!

Massive signs everywhere in our trust grounds but some relatives and patients ignore. According to our management, it is the duty of all staff to challenge smokers, yeah sure would love to see them try to tell someone who is dying or has lost a relative 'no smoking' - surely more humane to designate an area?

The hospital I work in banned all smoking for everybody on hospital grounds years ago. All that's happened is the staff stand & smoke just past the white line the hospital helpfully painted on the ground, meaning everybody walking towards the main entrance from the main road/bus stops has to walk straight through their smoke. And the patients just ignore the No Smoking & continue to smoke directly outside the main entrance doors.

The Trust did employ Smoking Wardens for a while! They were people whose sole job was to go up to people smoking on hospital grounds & ask them to leave. They lasted a couple of months before being redeployed as the abuse they suffered from patients & visitors was just unreal.

I visited Charing Cross hospital the other week. There were at least 9 members of staff standing smoking literally outside the gates as I walked in. Technically "off the premises", but it certainly didn't look any better.

Disgusting they smoke at all wearing a NHS uniform.... Don't they realise the smell sticks to them and lingers? No they don't, people I work with believe a few mints and a quick spray of impulse solves the problem...... It doesn't.

I have noticed that not many smokers have posted here! Well I smoke and want to tell this story. I was a carer for a baby who was dying. On the day that it was decided nothing more could be done, his parents and relatives all came to say goodbye. (if ever you need a fag I think this is it.) We took it in turns to sit with him and go out for a ciggie. The smoking ban had just came into force. We all sat on wall, well away from any windows. paths etc. A porter/smoke police came up to us to remind us about the ban. Yes I know we should have left the grounds but is a big hospital and only wanted/needed a quick break from the sadness of it all. He left us to it when we all thought the Dad (a lovely kind, gentle man) was going to hit him. Not right I know but....

I have spent a lot of time in hospitals with various family members and I can honestly say I have never encountered a HCP that smelt of smoke.

If they come close enough, lean over etc then I can smell it. Especially when I was pregnant with a nose like a bloodhound

That is heartbreakingly sad of course, Marylou, but the point is that it's a hospital... Your situation would be far from unique, unfortunately.

It's been like that here for years - works perfectly well. Not sure what the local residents think of people standing in the surrounding roads puffing away, but it's amazing how many staff have given up smoking since the ban came into place.

I get that they're trying to promote good health and they don't want people smoking, but when my 40 a day smoking dad was in hospital for a hip replacement last year, it didn't do his recovery any good having to go cold turkey on the fags as he was stressed and teary by it. He wasn't allowed to smoke on the premises and when I asked for a wheelchair so as I could take him off the premises for a ciggy, I was told I wasn't allowed to take him outside the grounds until he was deemed fit to be discharged. So what are patients who are smokers supposed to do?

I know smoking is bad for you and, as an ex-smoker myself, I now loathe it, but a smoker isn't suddenly going to decide to quit just because they are in hospital for a few days, and it's probably not the best time to quit when you're stressed to the hilt anyway. As an adult, my dad has every right to decide whether or not he smokes and it seemed a bit of an infringement on his human rights to be told he couldn't. He was a patient, not a prisoner! I agree that hospitals should have designated smoking shelters.

Was he offered support to quit before he went in for his (presumably planned) operation?

Tbh, I'd be more concerned about the damage that his 40 a day habit was doing to his health, esp. given the operation, than a so called infringement of his human rights.

So many people on here talk about a 'ban' as if thats the end of it and a smoker can't do it full stop - but thats not actually true. Under the current smoking legislation the only outside area where it is illegal to smoke is a train platfrom. It is not illegal to smoke in any other open spaces and that includes hospital frounds and car parks and in fact any other open spaces owned by an organisation

Now of course it is quite permissable for organisations to tell people they can't smoke as a condition of their entry onto a private site like a football stadiums grounds and carparks, people who enter these areas and smoke will be aware they are breaking the rules and can be ejected especially if this rule is printed on a ticket, they have a choice whether or not to go into an area where smoking is banned.

Its not as cut and dried in a hospital situation, you can ban staff if its a condition of their employment and written in a contract you may be able to ban visitors from hospital grounds if they are caught smoking as long as you make it clear on notices that they will be ejected and barred from the grounds if caught, but you can't actually ban a patient who has no choice but to be in hospital, a patient can't be thrown off hospital premises especially by non-medical staff, of course if a patient discharges themselves if they can't nip out for a fag, thats a different story

I think it's one of those things that on paper seems eminently sensible, as of course you shouldn't allow or encourage smoking in hospitals and health care professionals should really know better than to smoke.

But in practice, the patients smoke, and as it's a major addiction so it's not even that they won't stop they just can't without making what is likely to be a very stressful situation worse, and the workers are just human so of course some will smoke, and many will of course have stressful jobs. So it just never works and creates more problems than it solves.

I don't get why a person in HMP can smoke in a cell, but a patient can smoke outside on hospital grounds.

Not true in Scotland HadaBadDay - it's banned here. I believe England is investigating banning smoking in cells.

MrsDavid - again, not true in Scotland. NHS Boards have the power to ban smoking on their grounds under Govt. legislation.

SirChenjin yes he was offered support to quit but he doesn't want to, and that's his choice. Smoking will probably kill him, we both know that, but trying to force somebody to stop isn't suddenly going to make them want to do it.

HadABadDay I'm presuming prison comes under the same clause/loophole whatever you want to call it as the mental health wards in hospital where people are sectioned. In their case the hospital is deemed their home, so there has to be a place provided for them to smoke. In our hospital there is a balcony at the end of the ward provided.

People are going to smoke regardless of the policy the hospitial is bringing in. I really dont see the harm in having a smoking shelter for smokers. Yes, we all know that smoking is bad for you and can be harmful to others, but people still smoke and that is their choice.

I am a non smoker and have never smoked but I dont understand the complete ban on smoking in hospitial grounds. As others have said being in a stressful time with a loved one will make people want to smoke more.

After all, despite all the medical evidence to show how harmful smoking is, it isnt actually illegal.

The NHS is 'forcing' him to do anything. They've offered him an operation (his choice whether or not he takes it), they've offered him a bed (again, his choice), they've offered him free support to quit before he goes in for that operation (to reduce the risks associated with a GA), and he chose not to take up that support. That's not the fault of the NHS, nor is it an infringement of his human rights (look to Syria and places like that for a true definition of 'infringement of human rights')

Why do smokers think it is perfectly acceptable to throw their cigarette butts on to the ground?
I hate walking through a crowd of smokers gathered on the pavements outside our hospital.
Yes, the smell of smoke DOES stick to health workers/nurses clothes. Yuk

In the NHS trust where I work staff can be disciplined if they are seen smoking in uniform.

To be fair HadABadDay2014 if prisoners are only permitted to smoke outside prison grounds a number of them would probably just run off.

"Why do smokers think it is perfectly acceptable to throw their cigarette butts on to the ground?"

I imagine it's because those who do either don't care about littering or don't see it as littering. I wonder how many smokers who chuck their fag butts on the ground would do the same with their empty crisp packets