Article published on Vapingpost - Author: Simon Rosselat - Translator: The Vape Club
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust allows the use of e-cigarettes on hospital grounds and encourages people to use its smoking cessation service.
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, following the success of Scottish NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, has decided to allow the use of e-cigarettes on hospital grounds.
Medical director at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Dr Stephen Fowkie, announced that the ban on e-cigarettes has been lifted and that the use of e-cigarettes is permitted with some minor restrictions. Patients, visitors and staff are allowed to vape outside NUH grounds but are still not allowed to do so inside the building.
The decision, agreed following a review of NUH’s smoking ban policy on 28 April, will also help the Trust boost its smoking cessation services and make it more comfortable for patients and its 14,500 staff.
In a media interview, Dr John Britton, professor of epidemiology at the University of Nottingham and author of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP)'s Smoking Harm Reduction, said: "We need to encourage all patients and visitors who smoke and are forced to avoid using nicotine in the form of tablets or e-cigarettes in hospital. Allowing e-cigarettes is an important step towards achieving the ideal of a smoke-free hospital in Nottingham."
NUH manages Queen’s Medical Centre, City Hospital and Ropewalk House, and provides services to more than 2.5 million people in Nottingham and the surrounding areas. The NHS trust is the first, but unlikely to be the last, to relax its policy to make it more favourable to e-cigarettes.
“Simple, practical, effective, humane”, another step forward in reducing the harmful effects of tobacco, Clive Bates emphasized in a tweet on Twitter.
Clive Bates tweeted: "“Simple, practical, effective, humane”, another big step forward in reducing the harms of tobacco"
