Clarification by Berwickshire News: there are no criminal penalties for smoking in the grounds of Borders General Hospital

At the beginning of March I made a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about the Berwickshire News, which in an article about the health board encouraging smoking cessation, announced that breaching the smoking ban on the premises of NHS Borders was a criminal offence subject to heavy penalties.

The link to the clarification is here. This contains a link to the amended story.

Press complaints commission with more on Berwickshire News

I heard again from the Press Complaints Commission officer about the Berwickshire News item Health board step up efforts to help both staff and patients stub out their smoking habit.  The complaint featured this passage:

The new policy prohibits smoking in the grounds of all the health board’s hospitals and surgeries, with only a few execeptions and harsh penalties for those who don’t comply. 

Under the Public Health Scotland Regulations 2006, failure to comply with the policy is a criminal offence. Individuals may be fined a fixed penalty of £50 for smoking in any no-smoking premises. 

Their correction runs as follows:

In an article published on January 12 about a new NHS Borders smoking policy we incorrectly stated  that "failure to comply with the policy is a criminal offence". The sentence should have stated that "failure to comply with the law is a criminal offence". 

We also stated that there would be "harsh penalties" for those who don't comply. We accept that this is also misleading and apologise for the error.

I haven't yet ascertained that this correction will appear online.

Press complaints commission finds breach of code in NHS Borders tobacco policy story

I learned today that our complaint to the Press Complaints Commission regarding this piece from the Berwickshire News was resolved when the editor agreed that their story contained a material inaccuracy and agreed to correct it.

The complaint was essentially:

Among other things it discusses a new tobacco policy drawn up by NHS Borders that bans smoking throughout its premises including the grounds of hospitals. This policy is reported in the article to go 'beyond the legal requirements'. It then states, 'Under the Public Health Scotland Regulations 2006, failure to comply with the policy is a criminal offence.' There is nothing in the regulations that allows outdoor smoking to be restricted or gives NHS Borders the power to amend the law. 

i.e by printing something that was inaccurate the newspaper contravened clause 1 of the editors' code of practice. Happily Berwickshire News accepts its mistake:

The answer, essentially:

The newspaper accepts that the word “policy” was inaccurate and could be misleading to readers. It offered to change the word to “law” in a printed correction so that the sentence would read, “Under the Public Health Scotland regulations 2006, failure to comply with the law is a criminal offence”. The newspaper stated that it had not made a deliberate attempt to mislead the public and would happy to make a clarification.

So to be clear: if you are a visitor in the grounds of NHS Borders you will not be breaking the law by smoking. There is a policy against it, but a policy does not carry the force of law.

It is essential that people should not be misled into believing their choices are constrained by laws when this is not actually the case.

I am still waiting for the PCC to confirm that there will be an official record of this case on their website. This happened last time I made a complaint to the PCC.

It looks as though I was just in time. The Press Complaints Commission is to be axed. I wonder what will take its place?