LIGHTING up a cigarette will be a thing of the past at community hospitals in Oxfordshire from next month.

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust (OHFT) has announced its sites will become smoke-free from March 2.

Patients and staff who visit the nine community hospitals, the Warneford Hospital and Littlemore Mental Health Centres in Headington will not be allowed to smoke on trust-owned premises.

Chief executive of OHFT Stuart Bell said: “As a healthcare provider we have a duty to provide a setting that promotes good health and we didn’t feel the current policy around smoking was in keeping with this philosophy.

“Advanced notice will be given to patients coming into our care to notify them of this change to our policy and support and advice will be readily available for anyone who feels they need it.

“Staff across all our wards have received training to be able to offer smoking cessation advice and within some of our care settings nicotine replacement will be offered.”

The move to make sites smoke-free comes after the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence released guidance that all hospitals should become smoke-free in December 2013.

Oxford University Hospitals Trust (OUHT), which runs the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, John Radcliffe, Horton and Churchill hospitals, implemented a similar ban in 2007.

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Windmill Road resident Chris Clifford, who lives opposite the entrance of the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, warned the move could see more cigarette butts outside the sites.

He said: “When they set up the smoking ban, patients and staff would stand at the entrance and smoke almost constantly.

“There are hundreds of fag ends on the pavement, I’ve often thought of gathering them and sending them to the chief executive so he sees how policies affect residents.

“Can’t they just put up some shelters as all they are doing is forcing people on to residential streets? I don’t understand how that’s any better.

“There’s a litter problem that comes with the smokers and it doesn’t get cleared up as quickly as we would like.”

In 2013, OUHT was granted planning permission to build smoking shelters on their Oxford sites as they found the ban had not been “practical or enforceable”.

Spokeswoman for OUHT Alison Barnes said that smoking shelters had not been built and the decision was still under review.

She added: “If the trust was minded to erect shelters then we would use it as an opportunity to raise awareness of support and smoking cessation opportunities.”

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