Well, That’s The Thing About Guidance And Recommendations…

…you don’t have to take them, do you?

Oxfordshire’s hospital trust is to flout a recommendation by a Government body that smoking should be banned from its sites.

This is despite the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) issuing guidance that hospital sites should be “smoke-free”.

It’s all very well to say that, and then sit back and claim to have ‘done something’, but what’s often forgotten is that it takes two to tango. And if there’s no-one around to play the music and force couples onto the dance floor at gunpoint, the tango ain’t happening:

Mark Trumper, director of development and the estate at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “We continue to discourage smoking on all of our hospital sites. However we have accepted that it has not been practical or legally enforceable to prevent patients and visitors from smoking in areas where they are not directly impacting on non-smoking patients, visitors and staff.

“We hope that the installation of shelters will encourage people to consider the impact that smoking has on the wider public, and we hope to create a more appropriate environment around our entrance areas which is where we historically have had a significant problem. ”

A reasonable compromise between the rock of progressive demands and the hard place of intransigent smokers unwilling to obey diktats not backed up by the force of law?

No. Of course not. These people aren't reasonable, are they?

The decision to install the shelters was criticised by many of Oxfordshire’s senior doctors, including Dr Jonathan McWilliam, the county’s director of public health.

Yadda yadda yadda...

Prof Mike Kelly, director of public health at Nice, said: “It is absurd that smoking is still being passively encouraged within hospitals. The professionals have to be willing to take this guidance on.”

Which part of 'this cannot be enforced in law' did you not understand?