PLANS to make all hospital sites in the south-west, including the Great Western Hospital, completely smoke-free to improve the health of patients and staff could soon become a reality.

Public Health England chief executive Duncan Selbie has written to every NHS Trust asking them to impose a complete ban on smoking in hospital buildings and grounds.

He wrote: “I am asking for your help to reach smokers who are in your hospital waiting rooms, consulting rooms and beds.

“By working together I believe we can make the NHS a place which provides a supportive tobacco-free environment for patients, staff and visitors.”

In guidelines for smoke free NHS buildings and grounds set out by the National Institute for Health and Care excellence (NICE) PH48 guidance, to be smoke-free, hospitals must remove smoking shelters, stop staff smoking breaks, and provide support for patients and staff.

Under these guidelines, the Great Western Hospital, which does not allow staff, patients or visitors to light up anywhere on the hospital grounds, apart from in two smoking shelters, is not deemed a completely smoke-free site.

A spokesman for Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: “The Great Western Hospital has for many years been a completely smokefree site and, while it can be difficult to police the ban across such a vast area, we regularly remind all staff, patients and visitors not to smoke anywhere on the hospital grounds, except for in the designated smoking shelters located away from the main building.

“Smoking is still one of the UK’s biggest preventable killers and we would strongly encourage any smoker thinking of quitting to take advantage of any of the Stop Smoking services available at the hospital and in the local community.”

In the south-west several trusts have completely banned smoking in hospital grounds, including Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust which became a smoke-free site in 2006 and Langdon Hospital, Devon Partnership NHS Trust’s secure mental health site.

Many trusts are working with their local authority public health teams towards going completely smoke-free in the future. Around 15.5 per cent of adults in the south-west smoke and tobacco use remains the single largest cause of premature death

Russ Moody, of Public Health England, South West, said: “In the south-west we have seen smoking rates continue to fall across the region and are now the lowest on record at 15.5 per cent.

"PHE believes that the NHS must support every option to become smoke-free and discourage smoking in a bid to improve patient health and the resulting burden on the NHS.

"In 2014-15 around 475,000 hospital admissions in England were attributable to smoking and the total annual cost is estimated at £2bn, with a further £1.1bn in social care costs.”