£20,000 on enforcement officers v. threats to Fife and Tayside services

As already reported in recent posts, Tayside Health Board has brought in enforcement officers to police smoking on the grounds of Ninewells hospital. The project costs £20,000, and they have issued one littering fine so far, which means they have another 399 fines to issue before they break even. People might restrict their illicit smoking activities to the 152 hours per week when no officers are present ...

Meantime public health minister Nicola Sturgeon will be chairing the NHS Fife's annual review meeting in order to face the public over the issue of cuts in A&E services in the area.

The Courier has launched a Burning Issues campaign in order to draw attention to problems in the health service. It covers areas like Evidence of abuse at Perth Royal Infirmary, Superbugs link to cleaning cuts denied, Sick NHS workers cost £260,000 a week – but there is also evidence of a strong level of support from the public: Former patients full of praise for health service staff.

When a couple of smoking enforcement officers are added to this mix they must fade into obscurity. The money spent on these is small but everywhere you look there are more pressing problems. High levels of abuse directed at staff and high levels of sick pay are both significant problems: is policing smoking in the grounds of the hospital likely to help either situation? Isn't abuse of staff vastly more objectionable than smoking in a doorway out of the rain? Is a smoking ban designed to promote a spirit of mutual respect and dignity for everybody concerned

Last word to Planet Politics, in an excellent blog piece which points out that the hospital does not have an indoor smoking problem, and that 'zero tolerance' does not mean that enforcement is effective.

To contribute to Burning Issues on any aspect of NHS performance in Tayside call 01382 575291 or email courier@dcthomson.co.uk.

More about hospitals

Good news from NHS Grampian – a delay in its decision to implement its no- smoking policy for six months pending further consultations.

The threat of withholding treatment from smokers who breached NHS Grampian policy did not stop the Patients' Council spokeswoman from saying that she could 'not understand the delay'.

Another board member's view that 'the integrity of the board is at stake' if they fail to come up with an enforceable policy reflects the board's position that only a narrowly defined and very dogmatic interpretation of 'health promotion' will satisfy.

Freedom to Choose (Scotland) takes the view that the integrity of the board will take a leap if it listens to the problems detailed in the consultation executive summary (2009) – including the clear possibility that a doctrinaire anti-smoking policy will deter people from treatment – and abandons its dogmatic approach. In these economically-straitened times the prospect of spending up to £80K (Daily Mail, 3 August, p. 25) on destroying smoking shelters for no clear gain, only to have more people wandering off the site in their pyjamas, seems quite bizarre.

YET ANOTHER HOSPITAL STORY BROKE TODAY – Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, was reported in The Scotsman to have called in the environmental officers to 'fine people up to £50 for flouting its smoking policy'.

Of course, the environmental officers can apply fines for smoking only in enclosed or partially enclosed places. A phone call to Tayside Health Board quickly clarified that the enforcement officers had been called in to enforce the law – not the policy of no smoking in the grounds, which is not law.

For convenience I have added the link for Smoking, Health and Social Care Act (Scotland) 2005 to the side bar of the blog for easy reference.

And one more point:

the sign on the left must mean that prohibitions on smoking are banned, mustn't it ...?