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Smoking at Hairmyres hospital

Posted By Smoking not ok

"Smoking at Hairmyres hospital"

About: University Hospital Hairmyres

(as the patient),

I have made many verbal complaints about this but still nothing changes NHS lanarkshires no smoking policy is a joke, a complete waste on entering the hospital there are crowds of patients and visitors parked up at the doors smoking even propping them selves up on the no smoking signs ground littered with fag ends the smell is disgusting and it give the hospital a really bad image its not just the main entrance but also a& e one one occasion I pointed out the no smoking sign to the people standing at the entrance smoking to which I was met with oh aye and what you going to do you cant move us we can do what we want.

It is highly intimidating to walk into a hospital with people blatently breaking hospital rules and not giving a dam about it its a total disgrace and yet the hospital have no power to enforce there own policy. Shocking

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Responses

Response from Susan Friel, Director of Nursing, Acute Services, NHS Lanarkshire 5 years ago
Susan Friel
Director of Nursing, Acute Services,
NHS Lanarkshire

Submitted on 03/07/2018 at 18:08
Published on Care Opinion at 22:57

picture of Susan Friel

Dear Smoking not ok

I am so sorry to read about your experience when entering the hospital.

I share your frustration. Enforcing the No smoking policy has been an ongoing challenge for us. Unfortunately, we do not have enough staff to police all of the entrances all of the time. However we hope that our continued efforts and public awareness campaigns will help us achieve smoke free grounds.

It may be of interest for you to know that in 2018 it is anticipated that section 20 of the Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc. and Care) (Scotland) Act 2016 will come in to force. This will see the current indoor smoking ban extended to include an area of 15 metres from the perimeter of hospital buildings. Although the new law relates to cigarettes only, and does not include electronic cigarettes; anyone smoking outside a hospital building within the 15 metre no-smoking area could face a fixed penalty fine of £50, or if contested or aggravated in any way, a fine of up to £1000 in court. The Scottish Government are planning a national awareness campaign to support this.

To further assure you; NHS Lanarkshire’s policy position is not changing. Our policy continues to be that our entire grounds are smoke-free. This includes the use of electronic cigarettes. We have increased our signs and notices and staff are encouraged to challenge members of the public smoking in hospital grounds. We are doing our best to tackle this issue and are trying to spread the message which you can read about in a blog we published previously: https://www.careopinion.org.uk/blogposts/372/smoke-free-grounds

I’m glad you took the time to share your experience. Feedback like yours on Care Opinion is really helpful as it is widely read by the public which we hope will help us to change people’s attitude and behaviour to smoking on hospital grounds.

Thanks
Susan

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