Smokefree

Smoking is one of the main causes of preventable death in this country. University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust considers it to have no place in a hospital environment.

We strive to improve the health of all of our patients, staff and visitors. That is why we took the lead following the Government's recommendations in 2007, and became one of the first Trusts in England to introduce a blanket no smoking policy across its entire site.

The policy was devised in response to concerns about the damage smoking causes to the smoker, to those exposed to their smoke, and in the worst cases, to the family of the smoker who contracts a debilitating or fatal disease.

The policy is also part of a co-ordinated smoke free strategy across the Greater Manchester Strategic Health Authority area, and was agreed to by staff groups across the hospital.

Knowing the risks

The health risks of smoking are mentioned often enough, but certain key facts about the sheer deadliness of smoking can still shock:

- Every year, around 114,000 smokers in the UK will die as a result of their habit.

- Smoking kills around six times more people in the UK than road traffic accidents (3439), other accidents (8579), poisoning and overdose (3157), murder and manslaughter (513), suicide (4066), and HIV infection (234) all put together (22833 in total).

- Around half of all regular cigarette smokers will eventually be killed by their addiction.

- Smoking causes thirty per cent of all cancer deaths (including at least 84% of lung cancer deaths), 17% of all heart disease deaths and at least 80% of deaths from bronchitis and emphysema.

- It is estimated that several hundred cases of lung cancer and several thousand cases of heart disease in non-smokers in the UK are caused by passive smoking - breathing other people's tobacco smoke.

Smoking is not allowed on any part of the hospital site by staff, patients, visitors, or employees of other organisations. All of the facilities associated with smoking e.g. cigarette bins and the smoking shelter were removed following the ban.