HEALTH bosses in East Lancashire admitted new guidance on smoking outside hospitals will be ‘difficult to enforce’.

Yesterday, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence told hospitals to stop turning a ‘blind eye’ to smoking and to ban it on their premises.

The Lancashire Telegraph highlighted the issue in August, as smokers often gather outside the doors of Royal Blackburn and Burnley General hospitals.

Dad Symon Dickinson, who regularly attends the Blackburn site with his daughter Amelia, criticised East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust for allowing the practice to continue, saying they often had to hold their breath at the entrance to avoid inhaling ‘clouds of smoke’.

Lynne Barton, chairman of the trust’s No Smoking Group, said: “As an NHS employer, the trust has a duty to protect our patients from the health hazard that smoking represents and we take this very seriously.

“This guidance is, however, not legislation and therefore clearly difficult to enforce.

“We make it clear that smoking outside entrances and on our sites is not acceptable and we continue to work closely with our public health colleagues to address this, but we also need the support of all staff, patients and visitors to ensure they recognise our effort to make our sites smoke-free and comply with this.”

She said smoking shelters had already been removed, with additional no smoking signage installed, as well as audio messages to remind patients and visitors not to smoke on site.

Professor Mike Kelly, director of the centre for public health excellence at Nice, said: “We need to end the terrible spectacle of people on drips in hospital gowns smoking outside the entrances to hospitals.

“It’s clearly absurd that the most lethal set of toxins to the human body are being passively encouraged in hospitals.

“Smoking is the most important health problem facing the NHS.”