Merseyside hospitals under fire for allowing patients and staff to smoke in shelters on site

Mar 12 2013 by Helen Hunt, Liverpool Echo

MERSEYSIDE hospitals which allow smoking within their grounds have come under fire for not doing enough to deter the habit.

Campaigners from heart charity Heart of Mersey believe smoking should be completely banned from all hospital sites – with no smoking shelters at all for staff or patients.

It comes as figures show £27.8m is lost from hospital budgets across Merseyside and Cheshire through employee smoking related breaks and sickness.

Jo McCullagh, tobacco control lead for Heart of Mersey, which calculated the figures, said that cash could have been used to finance patient treatment.

Speaking ahead of National No Smoking Day tomorrow, she said: “As hospitals have a pivotal health promoting role Heart of Mersey feels all hospital sites should be smoke-free.

“This is best practice for all hospitals as unfortunately some, such as the Royal Liverpool, allow smoking on site in a designated shelter.”

Smoking remains the single largest preventable cause of ill health and premature death and is responsible for one in 20 of all hospital admissions.

Heart of Mersey has produced leaflets for patients and information packs for hospitals on making grounds smoke-free.

Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital (LHCH), Aintree, Alder Hey, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals and Arrowe Park and Clatterbridge hospitals in Wirral do not allow smoking anywhere on site.